Year of the Dragon
by Feral2K
Summary: When an ancient evil stirs in its slumber, the Winx girls and some new friends have to work together to stop it from awakening
1. The Past is Prologue

I do not own Winx Club. I do own a staggering amount of characters that I made up for this project. If you want to borrow any of them, just ask, for I am a benevolent being.

This project picks up after Season One. Haven't seen any other episodes, and I probably couldn't get it to work right otherwise.

To answer your first three questions: Yes, I am a guy. No, I'm not gay. Yes, really.

For those of you who read this the first time it was published, welcome back. For those of you who did not (and for some of you who read but did not understand), I feel I must come clean with you on a few things; consider this the Feral2k Manifesto. One: This is kind of a horror story moreso than anything else. It's kind of dark, and things aren't all sunshine and unicorns like they were in the show. Also, questions might not be immediately answered. It happens all the time in horror stuff; watch some movies and read some (shudder) Steven King and tell me it's not true. Maybe I didn't label the story properly the first time; sorry. Two: I might take extreme liberties with different characters. These things are done to enhance the story, to tie in other characters, or to cause characters to evolve beyond their previous roles. Three: Yes, there are a lot of new characters. Each one has a place and a purpose, even if that place or purpose isn't readily apparent. Four: Updates might not come as quickly as you like. There are two reasons for that. The first is that this story got cut up to ribbons the first time through while other stories were (and still are) doing fantastically, which is actually what caused me to take this down the first time; as a result, I might not spend as much time a week writing this as I do other stories. The second is that I am sometimes called out of the country on "consulting" jobs, and am sometimes away from my computer for weeks if not months, thus not being able to write. Five: I will insert Author's Notes in different points of chapters, starting with Chapter 4 (that's when I started doing it, with the first unpublished chapter). I'm doing this because it would take too long to write up a full commentary like I do for a few of my other stories. It's an unholy pain in the ass, and I only do it with those two because one needed explaining why I made a fan-favorite hero a villain again; the other one I do because I'm doing a whole re-write of the property and want to explain why I changed different characters. You really don't want me doing this here, and I'm not about to start. Last: Do not ruin this story for others. If you don't like it, simply ignore it instead of writing bad reviews every chapter (I'm looking at _you_, Kikurukina Bal Des'cagel. If you have a problem with being called out, do the diplomatic thing and PM me. I was nice enough to not ruin you the first time around, so you owe me that much.). That's why I took this down the first time, and I'd rather not do that again. With that in mind, I'd like to welcome you to "Year of the Dragon". Enjoy.

**Year of the Dragon**

The Past Is Prologue

Darcy glared at the guard as he walked by her cell. For a second, she thought about psychically frying his brains, but dismissed the thought almost immediately. It wasn't compassion that made her spare him; the prison she was in had magic dampeners everywhere. She hadn't been able to do anything since her plans for world domination had been thwarted a few months ago. Stopped by a bunch of snot-nosed little-

She clenched her teeth and closed her eyes. Thoughts like that wouldn't get her out of here. Thoughts like that might even get her stuck in here longer. However, she couldn't figure out what kind of thoughts _would_ help her get out. It wasn't like she could do anything in here. She didn't even have her sisters here to help her. What was left of Stormy's mind had collapsed without Darcy to hold it together, and Icy had been offered a deal after inspection had revealed Darcy's control of her for the last year or so. With that little bit of evidence, Darcy had been sent to Midnight, probably forever. And forever would be even longer if she was stuck here for it.

Opening her eyes, she looked out the window. Not much to see; Midnight had shifted from whatever stellar system it had been in originally, and was shooting around space like a pinball. The name came from the fact that it was permanently dark; gravitational devices implanted in the core of the planet kept it _very_ far from any stars, leaving the area outside the environmental shield pitch-black and freezing cold. The place was practically escape-proof. Even if you managed to get out of your cell, past the guards and out of the prison complex, you didn't really have anywhere to go.

Darcy was dwelling on this little kernel of information when her cell door opened. The guard knocked on one of the bars to get Darcy's attention. Darcy turned to look at her, and noticed, not for the first time, the little bracelet on the guard's wrist. Most of the female guards wore them, and Darcy was curious about what they did. It took her a moment to realize that the guard was talking to her.

"-our appointed attorney is here. She wants to discuss your options with you."

Darcy slid off her bed and followed the guard down the cell block. Several of the inmates watched her go down the hallway. Most of them made derisive noises as she passed. Darcy willed herself to ignore them, but it was hard to do. In fact, she was terrified of the other inmates, although she tried not to let that show. Closing her eyes, she continued after the guard.

"In here. You've got twenty minutes."

Darcy stepped into the room. It was bright; lighting was terrible in the cell blocks. Once her eyes adjusted, she saw her attorney. She was about Darcy's height, with brown hair hanging to her shoulders. A red diode shone from where her left eye should have been; Darcy did an almost imperceptible double-take when she saw that. The woman extended her arm for Darcy to shake. She did, surprised by the firmness of it. Both women sat down, and the lawyer opened her briefcase.

"We're going for an insanity plea."

"What? No, no, no. I'm not saying-"

"According to many witnesses, you would have conversations with your sisters, whom you controlled. We may be able to spin that into severe multiple-personality disorder, or possibly schizophrenia. You may have to do a little acting, but I think we can get you into a facility other than this one."

"I'm not crazy. I only did the conversation thing so people wouldn't catch onto the mind control thing. I don't care what you do, so long as you don't say I'm insane."

"Very well. I'm done here."

"Wait, that was it? All you had was the insanity plea?"

"Don't worry. I'll discuss this with my associates, and we'll get back to you in a few weeks. Until then, I wish you well."

The lawyer turned and walked out one door, while the guards came in the other to take Darcy back to her cell. She didn't even try struggling; she knew that there was no help to be had. She was going to be stuck here for the rest of her life. She almost started crying.

It had been two weeks since her lawyer had come to see her, as far as she could tell; it was hard to keep track of time when the whole planet was dark. Darcy was curled up on her bed, facing away from the cell door. Her hands were wrapped around a loop she had made out of her pillowcase. _One more day in this hellhole, and I'm using it. I don't care what it looks like, I'm not spending the rest of my-_

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Darcy perked up at the noise. It sounded like something dense was blowing apart. She couldn't think what it was, but it was coming closer. Thunk. THUNK. THUNK.

Darcy looked up when the noise came from behind her. Her cell door was open, and someone was standing in the way. Whoever it was, their face was covered by a hooded robe. Spikes stuck out in several places, and in its left hand was a large scythe. It beckoned with the right hand.

"You are to go."

"Wait, what?"

"You are to go. Find the mechanoid. It will tell you more."

Darcy slid off her bed and looked down the hallway. The other inmates were nowhere to be seen, but she could hear the distant sounds of fighting. She looked back at the hooded figure, which beckoned towards the exit doors. Darcy turned towards the doors and started walking.

After a half-hour of searching, Darcy was beginning to wonder whether or not this was just a dream. It didn't seem like one, but at this point, she didn't know what to think. She'd been on the brink of hanging herself not too long ago. For all she knew, she had actually done it, and this was just some delusion her oxygen-deprived brain was cooking up as she strangled to death.

She noticed an open door and poked her head in. Lying on the ground was a guard, writhing around. Standing above him was a humanoid. It was a little over five and a half feet tall, with silver arms and brown hair. It was holding a black rod, which Darcy recognized immediately; the rods were designed to give the nervous system a serious jolt whenever a prisoner crossed whatever line that particular guard had set in his or her mind that day. Darcy knocked on the door, and the humanoid turned from the guard. Darcy gasped. It was her lawyer.

There were some differences from the last time they'd met. Instead of any sort of professional garb, the other woman was wearing sneakers, light green pants, a sleeveless zip-up hoodie of the same color, and a white t-shirt. And there was the issue of the silver arms. She dropped the rod and waved a little at Darcy.

"Told you we'd get back to you. Just give me a minute. This is kind of a double-header deal here."

"Wait a minute. Who the hell are you?"

"Well, I'm Virus. Recognize me? Oh, wait. Hold up a second, gotta take care of my face."

Virus hooked the fingers of her left hand around the right side of her nose. Darcy watched as the tips thinned and elongated, appearing to slide under the nose. Virus yanked, and her nose, along with her hair and the entire left side of her face, peeled off. Underneath the mask, her face's left side looked like a metal skull. Her hair, freed from the confines of the wig, was short and ragged, in a screaming neon green. Darcy swallowed hard. If this was the same Virus she knew, she'd probably be better off dead.

The Virus she'd known had been a year older than her. She'd been a terror at Cloud Tower, picking fights with pretty much anyone who looked at her funny. And a lot of people looked at her funny. Virus had been a cyborg, with mechanical arms, one leg, and the left side of her face. But her parts had been bulky and in pretty bad condition. She didn't have parts that looked as sleek and dangerous as the ones this person had.

"Look, thanks for getting me out, but I think I'd better get go-"

Before she could finish her sentence, Virus was in her face. One hand was wrapped around the back of Darcy's head. Darcy didn't know where the other one was, but she was willing to bet that it was holding the blade that she felt pressed up against the roof of her mouth.

"Either you come with us, or we leave you smeared across this God-forsaken rock. Got it?"

Darcy tried to nod without cutting her brainpan open, and did surprisingly well. The point slid back out of her mouth, and Virus pulled her arm back. As she did, Darcy noticed that Virus wasn't actually holding any kind of blade, and found herself wondering how she did it; they were still within the effect of the magic dampeners. When Virus turned around, Darcy noticed that she was wearing one of the bracelets she'd seen on the female guards. _Of course. The bracelets negate the dampeners, so the guards can still cast spells._

"Hey, can you get one of those for me?"

"I could, but I don't really want to. Now, make yourself useful, and help me find . . . no, wait. Here it is."

Darcy looked at the item Virus had found. It looked like a circlet to be worn around the head, only it was covered in spikes. Virus held it up as though she was going to put it on, but then decided against it. Threading her arm through the center of the circlet, she snapped her fingers. A shadowy mass crept in through the door, and it took Darcy a few moments to recognize the mass as the being that had freed her from her cell. Once it had coalesced, it drew back its hood, revealing a very stern female face.

"Enough antics, mortal. Have you the Crown?"

"I have. Now, take this one home."

With that, Virus popped out of existence. Darcy glanced nervously at the other. Up close, she looked more than stern; she looked zealous. That look vanished in an instant as the being turned to face her. As the other's stare fixed on her, Darcy found herself wanting to curl up in a ball and die.

"Grab the scythe, girl. He alone knows what use you'll serve, but you must be of some importance."

Darcy grabbed the scythe, and the world went black. For a second, she thought that she really _was_ dead, and this cold, dead blackness was her final moment before her brain shut down completely. That thought only lasted as long as it took the blackness to fade away. As soon as the lights came back, the thoughts of her impending death vanished.

Her first thought was that she had been taken to some billionaire's summer home. As she took in the scenery, she realized that she was standing in some kind of temple. The walls were decorated with artwork depicting what looked like a dragon. She turned around and decided that, if the massive statue behind the altar was any clue, it was indeed a dragon. Before she could figure out any more, she was dragged to her knees by the shadow being.

"You are not worthy to look upon Him, even when He is in this state! Bow your head and-"

"Get your hands off me, you freak!"

With that, Darcy unleashed a torrent of psychokinetic energy, planning to blow this _thing_ across the room. At least, she tried to unleash the energy. Nothing happened to the shadow creature. No flying across the room, no falling over, nothing. Not even a little rustle of her robe.

"Wha-what happened to my powers? What did you do to me!"

A cold hand dropped on Darcy's shoulder. She jumped, whirling around to find Virus standing behind her. The flesh side of her face looked a little worried, while the metal side was stuck in a death's head smile.

"You can't use your powers? That's . . . actually, that's kind of funny, when you think about it. Considering all the effort we went through to bust you out, only to have you as our weakest link . . ."

She burst out laughing, bending over and wrapping her arms around her stomach. The shadow woman glared at her.

"This isn't funny."

"Yeah it is! I mean, come on, you of all people should get this, Tenebra! You remember, when I got you free of-"

"That's enough. If you think it's so funny, maybe you should be the one to figure out how to make her useful."

"All right, fine. Newbie, come with me. We gotta change your appearance first."

"How are you going t-"

"You'll find out. Now, come on. Time's a-wasting."

With that, Virus grabbed Darcy by the arm and led her away, ready to start her down the path of evil once more.


	2. First Day Jitters

I do not own Winx Club. I do own a staggering amount of characters that I made up for this project. If you want to borrow any of them, just ask, for I am a benevolent being.

This project picks up after Season One. Haven't seen any other episodes, and I probably couldn't get it to work right otherwise.

To answer your first three questions: Yes, I am a guy. No, I'm not gay. Yes, really.

Having only recently returned to this blessed country, and even more recently having recovered from numerous bullet ant stings all over my body enough to be able to use the TiVo and the internet, I find that Nickelodeon is messing with the continuity, changing all the funny stuff 4Kids did with the writing. As it stands, when I say Season One, I mean the 4Kids dub. The story is based off of that translation, it uses those character models (clothes, hair styles, etc.), works off of those voices (having seen the Nickelodeon specials, I notice that Tecna no longer has a British accent, and that little bit of trivia is mentioned a few times in later chapters), those family and planetary setups (like Musa being a princess of the Harmonic Nebula instead of being a commoner from Melody, or whatever the Hell the planet's called. Don't want to get on the wiki I found to check right now), etcetera, except where I make changes. Character models is a big one in this; Darcy has a major change soon and goes to a mutated version of her original appearance later, Icy gets glasses, Stella will get a pretty drastic makeover with her comeuppance, and so on. Now I must rest my fingers; got stung there too, and they're starting to hurt pretty bad.

**Year of the Dragon**

First Day Jitters

Bloom stepped through the portal she'd made and onto another planet. She wasn't as good at this as her friends were, but considering that she couldn't even have done _that_ last year, she was pretty good at it. She'd been practicing her magic over the summer, and had become pretty capable as a result. She wasn't going to let anyone jerk her around this year. Granted, the beings that _had_ messed around with her had been dealt with. Surely nothing like that was going to happen this year.

While she was considering the fate of the Trix sisters, she bumped into someone else. She was about to apologize when she realized that it was Stella, one of her friends from Alfea. She was accompanied by two other girls. One of them was taller than Stella, with dirty-white hair pulled into a myriad of braids and what appeared to be black makeup covering her eye sockets, making her eyes look sunken. The other one was shorter than Stella, with black hair, makeup and clothes. Bloom recognized the taller one; this was Stella's half-sister Nova. They'd been introduced after the defeat of the Trix, but hadn't really gotten all that much time to talk. The other girl was a mystery; Bloom had never seen her before in her life.

"So, who's the little ray of sunshine here, Stella?"

"She's my cousin, Umbra. She's starting at Alfea this year."

"Oh, hey there. My name's-"

"Piss off, Red."

Stella slapped Umbra up the back of her head at the same time that Nova let out a snort of laughter. Stella glared at Nova, but quickly returned her attention to Umbra.

"That's not nice. This is one of my friends you're talking to, and I expect you to try and act civilized around her."

"Screw off. I don't even want to go to your preppy school. I'd rather go to Cloud Tower."

"God, not this again. Look, your parents decided to send you to Alfea, and that's where you're going. And you're not going to try and get yourself kicked out just so you can switch schools."

"Look, guys, I gotta go. You do not want to know what'll happen if I show up la-"

"Whatever, just go. I'll deal with Umbra."

Nova turned away and started walking through the crowd. Bloom tried to follow her with her eyes, but Nova blinked out of existence just as she got next to a darker-skinned girl covered in piercings. Bloom blinked once; she hadn't sensed the obscene amount of magic needed to teleport without a portal. She turned to ask Stella about that, but Stella and Umbra were arguing fiercely about something. Bloom shook her head and walked off. She'd catch up later.

Nova dispelled the invisibility she'd wrapped herself in once she got onto the Cloud Tower grounds. Walking through the doors, she was wrapped up in a bear hug. The giver of the hug was someone she recognized immediately; Leah, one of her roommates. Leah was shorter than her (to be honest, most girls were shorter than her), with red-orange hair streaked liberally with black. As soon as Leah released her from the hug, Nova asked a question she'd been thinking of for a while.

"Look, can you please have Hemlock room with Soniqua this year? I don't want another year of putting up with her."

"Sorry, but Hemlock already showed up, and we claimed a room."

Nova punched the wall and swore loudly. One of the other students in the main hallway twisted her head around; Nova knew some really inventive curses, and typically you learned some new ways to swear if you hung around her long enough.

"Look, why don't you just put her with one of the freshmen? Torture one of them instead of me?"

"Because Soniqua is afraid of you, so she won't try and screw with you like she would with everyone else. You know that."

"Yeah, but she's a _bitch_, even with me. Honestly, I think I'll have to kill her at some point this year."

"You and I know that's not true. If you were going to kill her, you'd have done it last year, so you could have blamed it on Darcy. Now, you have no one to take the blame."

"I'm not making any promises that I won't kill her, but, if I have to, I'll try not to."

"Excellent. Now, are you making multiple trips to get your stuff? Need any help?"

"Nope. This backpack can hold pretty much anything you put in it. Extradimensional wormhole, or something like that. See you at the initiation ceremony."

Nova turned to the nearest set of stairs and began walking; teleportation inside the school was frowned upon. She looked over her shoulder once while going up the stairs, just to see what Leah was doing hanging around the doors. However, Leah had already moved out of her field of vision.

Bloom was setting up half of her room when someone knocked at the main door of the common room. It wasn't Musa or Tecna; both of them were setting up their things in their room. It probably wasn't Flora or Stella, either; they both had keys, and wouldn't need to knock. Putting down the poster she was trying to hang, she went to the door.

The person on the other side of the door was easily recognized. Even if you'd never met her, everyone knew what Toxica looked like. Black hair, pale skin, white tank top and black combat boots. Everyone also knew Toxica was a lesbian; Bloom herself had been on the receiving end of Toxica's invitations about a week into her freshman year. Fortunately, Toxica didn't try to force herself onto others when they said no. Still, she made Bloom a little nervous.

"Hey, kid. Faragonda sent me to see if you or your friends could help give tours for the new students."

"What, too many for you seniors?"

"Not if they'd staggered their arrivals, no. But most of them ended up here at about the same time, so we're stretched pretty thin. Your friend Flora already agreed to help, but we need a couple more to cover everyone. You in?"

"I guess so, yeah."

"Good. Go down to the entrance hall and tell Kara. She'll give you a pair to show around the place."

Leah was bored. The initiation ceremony at Cloud Tower had bored her last year, too. If you weren't up front, waiting to be presented to the student body, you were inevitably bored. Granted, being bored in the audience beat being terrified up front. To amuse herself, she flicked her fingers, conjuring up a marble-sized ball of bruise-colored fire. Nova, who was sitting on her right, didn't seem to notice, though it was easy to figure out why; Soniqua, the dusk-skinned pop star that would be sharing Nova's room, was sitting to Nova's other side. Nova was trying to ignore Soniqua's attempts to make her flip out.

Turning to her left, Leah began bouncing the fireball in front of Hemlock. Hemlock was a junior, like Leah, but they couldn't be any more different. Leah was a procrastinator; Hemlock did everything as soon as it was assigned. Leah loved showing off her powers (aside from Bloom, she was the only known magic-user on Earth); Hemlock didn't. Leah was basically good; Hemlock was pure evil, though she usually behaved around her roommates. There were many other differences, but despite them, the duo had become fairly close friends.

Hemlock flipped her dark green braid over her shoulder and turned to look at Leah, who immediately ceased playing around with her fireball. Hemlock gave a serious glare at Leah, caressing the sword she wore as she did so.

"You're not thinking of shooting that at the freshmen, are you?"

"Of course not. I am, however, thinking about-"

"No. Try to get one week in before you start getting detention."

In response, Leah commanded the fireball to rise to the ceiling of the auditorium. Hemlock pinched the bridge of her nose as Leah made a quick downward gesture with her fingers. A girl about three rows in from the front swore loudly, batting at her head. Leah had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Hemlock sighed in exasperation. _This is going to be a _long _year_.

"And this is the library. If you need a book, just come here and the librarian will help you find it."

Toxica raised a hand at the new librarian; most of the staff at both Cloud Tower and Alfea had left after the events of last year, and Toxica hadn't gotten the chance to really meet any of the new hires. The librarian, for example, was a hive mind of tiny flying creatures that banded together in a relatively humanoid form. Kind of weird, but you got used to it after a while.

One of the two freshmen she was showing around couldn't help staring. The other, a Goth girl with a monstrously bad temper, gave a quick glance and then turned away. Toxica didn't like her all that much, but she wasn't going to let that show. Gesturing for the duo to follow her, she led them out of the library and down one of the hallways. They hadn't gotten all that far when the Goth, who had been introduced as Umbra, spoke up.

"You're the queer one, right?"

Toxica felt her left hand twitch a little.

"You're related to Stella, aren't you?"

"So what if I am? Answer the question."

Making a gesture with her hand, Toxica produced a pack of cigarettes. She pulled one from the box and reversed the gesture, sending the box back to her room. Her other hand made a similar gesture to produce a lighter, which she used to light the cigarette before banishing it as well. Umbra's eyes widened a little, while the other, who had given her name as Dodger, nodded to herself.

"They let you _smoke_ in here?"

"They do now that the disciplinatrix is gone. The new one will probably be too distracted to care."

"So, answer the question. Are you the raging fag my-"

Umbra's jaw erupted in a flare of pain. She was on the floor, although she had no idea how or why. Before she could get up, Toxica had kneeled down on Umbra's arms so that the older fairy was straddling the younger one's chest.

"You can't do this to me! I'm-"

"Oh, you are _definitely_ from Stella's family. Now, let me tell you how this is going to work. You're going to shut up for the rest of the day. I don't want to hear another peep out of you. Got it?"

"Go to Hell, freak."

"All right, I was hoping I wouldn't have to do this, but you leave me no choice."

Toxica began rubbing her hands together. As they went back and forth, Umbra noticed that they were taking on a nasty shade of green. All of a sudden she remembered what Stella had said about Toxica.

"You can't kill me! They'll kick you out for sure!"

Toxica stopped rubbing her hands together. A few hazily green droplets fell from her hands and onto Umbra's shirt. Toxica set her hands against Umbra's throat and began rubbing them there. Umbra felt her skin burn a little and began thrashing her body around. All of a sudden, Toxica took her hands off Umbra's neck and stood up. Umbra opened her mouth, ready to use some of the words she'd learned from Nova, but no sound came out. She began scrabbling at her throat. Toxica laughed.

"I paralyzed your vocal cords. They should start working by tomorrow. Now, if you ever talk to me like that again, I will leave you blind, deaf, mute and infertile for the rest of your natural life. Got it?"

Umbra nodded sullenly.

"Good. Now, follow me, please. We've got to show you to your dorms. What do you know, you two are in the same dorm. Easier for me, I guess."

As Dodger and Toxica started walking away, Umbra made an obscene gesture at their backs before getting up. She would get even someday. All she had to do was figure out how.

In addition to the widely varying schools of magic taught at each school, Cloud Tower and Alfea handled the first day very differently. At Alfea, everyone got their stuff put away before orientation; at Cloud Tower, the freshman had to wait until after. At Alfea, you were assigned a room; Cloud Tower preferred their older students to pick new roommates each year. As the oldest students in their room, Leah and Hemlock got to choose their two new roomies out of the freshman class. The order in which older students picked was determined by lottery; Hemlock had gotten to pick third, while Leah was stuck picking last. Leaning against the wall, she started seeing if she could predict who got picked when. She turned away when a member of the senior class stepped up next to her.

"Hey Sparky. When do you get to pick?"

Sparky turned to look at Leah. Noted for her incredible control of electrical energy, her auburn hair stood up in shocks, like she'd just pulled her tongue out of an electrical socket. Of course, that wasn't possible; a rebreather that always reminded Leah of Darth Vader or Plo Koon sat snuggly over her mouth and nose. Her eyes were also covered by a pair of black goggles. Leah had always been curious about them, but didn't think it was something Sparky would talk about. Sparky responded with a feminized but obviously mechanical voice.

"I go second to last. Sucks for you, huh?"

Leah waved her hand back and forth.

"Honestly, as long as I don't get the pregnant one, I don't care when I pick."

"Pregnant one?"

"Yeah, that one with the Buddha belly."

Sparky took a look at the freshman Leah had pointed out. She shook her head.

"She's not pregnant."

"Really?"

"Well, not technically. That's an egg sac, I think. Why don't you ask her when you get stuck with her?"

"Don't even joke about that. I already shudder to think what Hemlock picked. Say, you wouldn't mind switching places, would you?"

A burst of static came from Sparky's rebreather/vocal stimulator. It took Leah a minute to realize that it was a snort of laughter.

"Yeah, right. I'd never switch off with you. No offense, mind, it's just that you're going last. Never go last in anythi-"

Sparky was interrupted by her cell phone ringing. She pulled out the earpiece, plugged the transmitter into her vocal stimulator and answered the phone.

"Yeah, who is it? Oh, hey, how was – what do you mean, _now_? No, I'm busy. Yes, it does matter. I don't want – you know what? Fine. But you owe me in a big way."

With that, she disconnected the phone. Leah, who had heard Sparky's half of the conversation, was grinning like a fiend.

"Shut up."

"But I didn't even say anything."

"You were going to. Now, I have to run, so-"

"That voids your turn to pick, and I get it instead?"

Sparky made a rude gesture, and then went to inform the teacher acting as official that she had to leave. Leah grinned and started scanning the now small crowd of freshmen. As the crowd thinned, she did a headcount, and came up one short of the number she'd counted during initiation. Scanning the crowd, she spotted the missing student sticking to the shadows. _Interesting. Someone doesn't want to be picked. Well, let's rain on that parade_. Once it got to be her turn, Leah walked up to the girl in the shadows and grabbed her by the arm.

"Come on, you're coming with me, kid."

Leah turned around and walked away, practically dragging her new roommate behind her.

Toxica was busy with another pair of freshmen when she got a text message. Flipping her phone open, she read the message quickly and sent out a response. Looking around, she singled out another student and flagged her down.

"Hey, Spica, are you busy?"

"No. Why?"

"I need to dump these two on you. Faragonda wants to talk to me. Thanks."

Toxica walked off, leaving Spica a little surprised. She'd made it halfway to Miss Faragonda's office when she crossed paths with another senior heading the same way. She was Arista, a princess who wasn't nearly as stuck-up as most others in her place were. She usually wore jeans and sandals, with shirts that showed just a little too much belly; Arista wasn't exactly slim, even though she was by no means fat. Her long dark hair was held back by a green headband, and her face was wrinkled a little around the nose, probably because of the smell of Toxica's cigarette.

"God, can you put that out? It reeks."

"Why certainly, Your Highnessness."

"Don't call me that. You know I hate it."

"Oh, you know that's not true. If it was, you'd do more than just tell me to stop it."

"Whatever. You know Miss Faragonda's pretty much going to demand you put it out."

"Let her try. Where're Kara and Pariah?"

"'Let her try?' Look, whatever got you mad at her, drop it. Just let it go, because I don't want another year of you sniping her every chance you-"

"Hey, wait up!"

Both of them turned their heads to look at the new arrival. She had gray-green hair and an unhealthy gray tone to her skin. Her skin looked like it had been stretched over her bones. If it had been anyone else, the girls would have been worried. But Pariah had always looked like this, as far as they knew. Sliding between them, she laid a hand over each of their shoulders.

"You'll never guess what I heard. Well, Toxica, you might, but aside from that, this is pretty fresh."

"Look, I wasn't feeling her up. She said some hateful things, and I decided to teach her a little lesson. That's all."

"Wait, what? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. Continue."

"Well, rumor has it that you've finally found someone here. Is it a real relationship, or is it more, you know . . . bow-chicka-bow-wow?"

Toxica shot Pariah a dirty look, one that said _Drop it_ very clearly. Pariah caught the gist and shut up. As the trio approached the doorway to Miss Faragonda's office, they ran into the fourth and last member of their little group. Kara's entire body seemed to crawl over her lanky frame; her powers generated massive amounts of kinetic energy, leaving her permanently twitchy. As of right now, she was pacing furiously in front of the office. Noticing the other three, she greeted them, although she didn't stop moving to do so.

"So, what are we here for, anyway? I mean, the rest of our class-"

"The rest of our class has nothing to do with this. You know, the whole save-the-universe thing?"

As she said this, Toxica turned around and pulled the back of her shirt up a little, revealing a set of runic designs scrawled across the small of her back. The other three recognized it immediately; each had that same design on her body, though they had all chosen to hide it under their hair. Toxica dropped her shirt right before the door to Miss Faragonda's office opened. The four of them filed into the room, with Toxica taking up the rear. Miss Faragonda glared at her for a moment. Toxica shrugged, took one last drag on her cigarette, and ground it out as she expelled an inordinate amount of smoke from her lungs. Miss Faragonda turned to face the rest of the girls, but kept an eye on Toxica in case she tried anything else.

The foursome knew exactly why they were in Miss Faragonda's office. During their freshman year, they and a quartet of students from Cloud Tower had witnessed a battle between two powerful creatures. Miss Faragonda and Miss Griffin had found them, and all eight had been inducted into a secret society dubbed the Watchers, devoted to prevent the resurrection of Cadraz, a potent draconic god of chaos. So far, they had been fighting disorganized cultists and monsters thought to have a link to Cadraz. The fact that all four of them had been called in at once, instead of whenever something needed done, meant that this year was going to be different, and not in a good way.

"A situation has come up. Miss Griffin and I will explain in a few minutes. Now, follow me."

She opened a portal and walked through, with the other four in tow.

"So, let me get this straight. They're making you repeat all four years of school despite the fact that you only failed one year? That sounds a little harsh."

Leah was walking down the corridor to the dorm she shared with Hemlock, Nova and Soniqua, as well as who-or-whatever Hemlock had picked. Following behind was the girl Leah had picked to fill out their room. As they walked, Leah found herself praying that Hemlock hadn't picked out one of the weirder-looking freshmen as their other roommate; she wasn't being intentionally picky, but she preferred at least vaguely humanoid form on her roommates.

As they got to the door to the room, Hemlock came out. She got one look at the girl Leah had picked and grabbed Leah by the front of the shirt, dragging her a fair distance away to "consult" on her choice.

"No. Find someone else and switch them."

"It's a little late for that. Besides, she's-"

"She's a megalomaniacal brat! Or did you forget that she tried to take over the world last year?"

"That wasn't her fault. If you watched or read the news-"

"Yeah, mind control. She made that up so she wouldn't get thrown in jail or locked up in an asylum when she got caught! God, how you never managed to get kidnapped when you were a kid-"

"What the Hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You're too trusting! You've always been willing to associate with anyone, no matter how dangerous they are!"

"She's not dangerous! You of all people should know that. I mean, the two of you were friends-"

"_Were_ being the operative word there. I don't care what she was like back then, she's a monster now. I will not share a dorm with Icy Trix, or either of her sisters if they show up, and there is no way you ca-"

Leah slapped Hemlock across the face, raking tiny white lines across her cheek with her nails. By the time she'd gotten her hand back, Hemlock had drawn her sword and had it pressed against Leah's throat. Leah tried not to swallow, a little afraid that doing so would cause the blade to cut her throat. Both of them turned when a slight clearing of the throat came from behind Leah.

"I really hope this is important enough that the whole school needs to hear it. Otherwise, calm down and shut up, both of you."

Nova was standing there, arms crossed over her chest. She fixed her gaze on Hemlock, who slowly sheathed her sword. Leah lowered her hands, which her brain had subconsciously ignited when Hemlock drew her sword. Each of them took a step back from the other, and then Hemlock went back into their room with Nova following behind. Leah went over to Icy, who was still standing in the hall, hands over her face. She ran them down her face, and Leah saw a few tear tracks on her face.

"Are you all right? I mean, I didn't think she'd react like that, but-"

"I'm fine. I should have seen this coming, though. After all the crap I had to go through to even get this . . . "

Leah threw her arm around Icy's shoulders, holding her in case she started crying again. They stood there for what seemed like a few seconds, but was more like a minute. While they were standing there, the door to their dorm opened, and a green girl with bright purple hair stuck her head out, as well as a pair of right arms.

"Um, they want to know if you're going to come in or not. What should I tell them?"

Leah's eyes and nostrils flared for a second, and then relaxed. She looked at Icy, who nodded. With that, both of them went into the room, ready to face a new year.

Sparky was furious, and didn't hesitate to vent when she found the person that had put her in such a fine mood. As soon as she saw Erika, she exploded.

"What the Hell is wrong with you?"

Erika, the dark-skinned piercing queen Bloom had noticed earlier, looked a little stunned by Sparky's outburst. The other two girls in the room both looked over at the duo.

"What do you mean? Miss Griffin told me to-"

"I lost my chance to get Icy. Gonna be pretty hard to keep an eye on her now. Now, it's not just you, Erika. It's all three of you. I mean, if we were supposed to keep watch on her, why someone didn't grab her early, instead of having me wait and grab her last, is a freaking mystery. Good God, we are screwed if anything big happens this year, if I have to rely on brain donors like y-"

Someone cleared her throat behind Sparky, who turned to see Headmistress Griffin standing behind her. Sparky groaned, an electronic hum of resignation.

"If you must know, it was my idea to keep Icy out of your dorms. That way, she wouldn't get jumpy with one of you trying to follow her around all the time."

"Yeah, we wouldn't want to freak her out. Much better to just let her enact whatever megalomaniacal scheme she's got going. Especially with the group she's probably with now."

"Trust me; this is far better than your idea. I believe she is reformed, and you should as well."

Miss Griffin turned around, and Sparky made a universal gesture at her back. Erika shot her a look, while one of the other two, a tanned girl with long red hair, smirked a little. The last of them, bald, with legs crossed under her, opened her mouth, but Sparky pointed a finger at her.

"Don't. If you say you saw this happening, I'll fry you like an egg, no joke."

The bald girl shut her mouth, and Sparky lowered her finger. Blaise, the redhead, stood up and led the other three into Miss Griffin's office. Within, a portal waited for them. Blaise and Erika walked through, followed by the bald girl. Sparky hesitated for a second, and then followed them.

Getting to the neutral ground where the Watchers met involved crossing through several portals almost instantaneously, so as to disrupt attempts to follow them there. Most people weren't affected by it, but for some reason the rapid transit messed with Sparky's already problematic lungs. As she arrived in the cavern, she began hacking through her rebreather, bent double for a moment. Erika came over to help her up, but Sparky waved her off. Once she recovered, she straightened up. The Alfea contingent of the Watchers were already there, which meant that they, or at least, the old bag in charge of them, had control of the meeting. No formalities were exchanged; a bad sign.

"We recovered these images from a prison break in Midnight. Several inmates escaped, but there are three players of interest, seen here."

As she spoke, Miss Faragonda had produced a moving image of the inside of Midnight. Separate images split off as the three individuals were caught within them. One looked like she had taken a shotgun blast to the face; the left side of her face was a skull with the skin and muscle removed, and she was missing her nose as well. The second was seen only as a hooded figure holding a scythe, a clichéd Grim Reaper. The third, on the other hand . . .

"Oh, fantastic, Darcy's loose. Wow, I bet it would be so much easier to catch her if we had her sister monitored. God, why didn't someone think of _that_? Oh, wait-"

Blaise slapped Sparky up the back of the head. Sparky turned what passed for a glare on her, but shut up. Miss Faragonda immediately picked up from where she had left off.

"We have yet to determine the skull-faced woman, and I'm certain all of you remember Darcy, but the key figure is this one."

As she spoke, she enlarged the picture of the Reaper-esque person. The image began to move forward again, and after a few minutes, the figure lowered its hood, revealing a woman with ebony skin and dark black eyes. Everyone in the room recognized that face. Oracle, the bald girl Sparky had recently threatened, was the one to utter the name.

"Tenebra. But, isn't she supposed to be dead?"

"Tenebra's an immortal, Chrome-dome. Not something like a Methuselah, but a genuine immortal. She was bound to come back at some point."

"The point is not that she _could _come back, but that she has. The fact that they're recruiting means all the pieces they need to resurrect Cadraz are in play. The Orphan, the Half-Breed, and whatever tools they need to revive Cadraz's essence."

"Hooray for them. All they've got are a cyborg, a megalomaniac and an immortal. Surely we can beat that."

Miss Faragonda turned over her shoulder to glare at Toxica. Toxica ignored it. Turning back, Miss Faragonda decided to explain the situation.

"It's more than those three. We know they have a few Methuselahs, although we're not sure which ones. Then there are the cultists we _haven't_ rounded up, the Dragon Knight and the shapeshifter army controlled by that monster Hirene. They also might be recruiting from the student bodies. I think it's time we did some recruiting of our own."

The words shocked Erika and Arista, but the rest weren't. Sparky smiled a little under her rebreather; she'd suggested the idea of bringing additional students into the Watchers after almost dying at the hands of the Dragon Knight during her second year. Blaise raised her hand, wanting to ask a question.

"How are we picking recruits? I mean, none of us can really be impartial in this."

"Miss Griffin and I will handle the recruitment process. You need not worry about it. Be on your guard, for enemies could be anywhere."

Bloom laid her head against the wall. Half her day spent wrangling new students around the school, and all she had to show for it were a headache and a few wasted hours. Hopefully she could find some peace with her friends. Alas, she realized as she walked in the door, this was not the case.

"I don't care! I'm not sharing my room!"

"Look, we can't ask them to transfer her out. We're the only ones she really kno-"

"I. Don't. Care. Get that through your thick little commoner skull. I'm not sharing my room with trash like her. So just find some other room for her to-ow! Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow! Dammit, that hurts!"

Stella was up on her toes, face pressed against the wall while Flora twisted her arm up behind her back. Sighing, Bloom flopped onto the couch, rubbing her temples. She closed her eyes and twisted to lie down, only to find her head sitting in someone's lap. Reopening her eyes, Bloom found herself staring into a pale, freckled face ringed by red hair. She recognized the girl immediately.

"Mirta? What are you-"

"I transferred here, remember? Your headmistress said I should room with you guys, but it looks kind of like I'm not welcome here."

"What-? No, that's just Stella. She gets weird sometimes. We've learned to tune it out."

Bloom got up and went to her room, planning to finish setting it up. Outside, she heard Flora and Stella still arguing. Silently, she prayed that this year would be normal. No evil plots, no monsters, none of that.

How wrong she would be.


	3. The Game Begins

I do not own Winx Club. I do own a staggering amount of characters that I made up for this project. If you want to borrow any of them, just ask, for I am a benevolent being.

This project picks up after Season One. Haven't seen any other episodes, and I probably couldn't get it to work right otherwise.

To answer your first three questions: Yes, I am a guy. No, I'm not gay. Yes, really.

**Year of the Dragon**

The Game Begins

Hemlock and Leah were on the small balcony their room had, watching the last flickers of moonlight sink into the southern horizon. Hemlock was leaning against the doorway, while Leah was sitting on the railing, seemingly unconcerned about the few hundred feet of open air between her and the ground should she fall. Hemlock's right hand lay across her waist, fingers caressing the hilt of her sword; Leah's hands were full with a white bat. Hemlock decided to break the silence.

"I don't trust her."

"You don't trust anyone. I mean, if you did, you wouldn't be carrying the katana everywhere. There's no shapeshifting cat-people here, you know."

"That's not the point. I know you two were good friends, but don't let that blind you to the possibility that-"

"That what? That she might be some kind of monster waiting to take us down from the inside? We didn't rate any kind of threat last year. What makes you think that, in this unlikely scenario, we'd be more of a threat now instead of then?"

"It's not us I'm worried about. It's Nova. Someone like her . . . let's just be glad Icy and her sisters didn't know how powerful she _really_ is."

"Icy's not evil. I know she isn't."

"It's easy to have a psychic like Darcy poke around your brain to make it look like she was controlling you."

"And she just had Darcy fry Stormy's brain _and_ convinced her to spend some time in jail, all to get a chance to steal power she didn't even know about from a student who, like us, didn't rate a threat on her level? By God, how charismatic and sinister a monster she must be."

"Sarcasm isn't necessary. You can make your point perfectly without it."

"Oh, but it is necessary. I'm telling you, we can trust her."

Hemlock had more to say on the subject, but held her tongue; this wasn't an argument she didn't want to have right now. She pushed off the wall and went through their common room, headed for the room she shared with Leah. Hopefully she could find something in there to distract her until classes started.

Virus rolled a small silver ball back and forth between her hands. Darcy was still sleeping off the massive amounts of painkillers and sedatives Virus had dumped in her; changing someone's form using shapeshifter blood hurt, or so her former master had taught her. Frankly, she thought he'd been blowing smoke up her ass, but it was better to be cautious than killing the person they'd just broken out of jail with overwhelming pain.

Getting bored with the ball, she pressed her palm over it, absorbing the mercurion orb back into her arm. She stood up and walked out of the little cell that passed for a bedroom in the temple. Striding confidently down the halls, she found herself in one of the storerooms scattered around the temple. As far as she knew, these rooms had been used to store food or clothing, back when priests and monks had roamed the halls. Now, however, they were used to store the many artifacts the Dragon Cult had acquired over the years.

Walking through the rows of magic weapons, foci and other items that had formed over the centuries, Virus came upon their most recent acquisition, the Crown of Thorns. To be honest, she had no clue why they needed it; in all honesty, they probably didn't need most of the things kept in the storerooms. Her master had been adamant about keeping them, if only to keep them out of the hands of Scyrah or the Watchers, or anyone else that would oppose their mission. As a result, the temple was a storehouse for random crap any member of the Cult found interesting.

Granted, there were a few useful things in here. Virus grabbed a large, ornate amulet off of one of the shelves. The Phylactery of Souls was basically a storage device for various spirits, dead Methuselahs and other useful beings that lingered after death. Most of them had worked for the Cult at certain times during their long existences, although a few had been forcibly acquired; others, like the guardian spirit bound to the library at Cloud Tower, had simply refused, or were to powerful to be contained. Either way, the spirit she needed to talk to now was securely bound within the Phylactery, waiting for Virus to call her forward. Sliding the Phylactery into her pocket, Virus left the storeroom; she needed space for the summoning ritual, and there were several rooms designed for just that purpose scattered around the temple.

Tecna zipped up her shirt and grabbed her backpack. She was heading out early, hoping to get to know one or two of the new teachers before classes started. She slipped silently through the door, trying not to wake her roommate Musa as she left.

As soon as she stepped out of the main door to the dorm she shared with Bloom, Musa and the others, she stopped dead to avoid running into another student. Pariah always looked like she was sick, or had just gotten over some terrible disease; her skin was a sickly pale gray stretched thinly over her skeleton. As far as anyone knew, though, Pariah was completely healthy, and was all-around a good person. However, Tecna had a feeling that Pariah's visit was about to wreck her day. She wasn't entirely wrong.

"Hey kid. Remember how you offered to help us yesterday, but we couldn't fit you in?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Someone came in at the last minute. She's a bit of a special case, so we need someone to shadow her for the day, just to make sure she doesn't get into any trouble. We already talked to your teachers, so you don't have to worry about missing classes."

"Why are you coming to me with this?"

"Because, if we stuck her with some snobby heiress or bratty princess, she'd probably have a meltdown or run away, and we don't want that to happen. Okay?"

"Fine, but you owe me."

"Great! Let's go get her. Incidentally, there's a few things you should know about her first . . . "

Icy grabbed the pair of glasses off of her dresser. Her eyes, already bad enough, had gotten worse after a year of trying to see without glasses; Darcy had figured that Icy looked more imposing without them, and had disposed of them after she'd taken control. Turning them over, Icy slipped them over her eyes, bringing the room into much greater focus. Picking up her bag, she walked out into the common area, finding most of her roommates still there.

Soniqua, wearing a maroon scoop-neck dress well north of indecent, was sitting on one of the chairs, using a compact to help her clean off her upper lip; everyone knew that she had a little bit of a cocaine problem, which a summer in rehab had apparently failed to extinguish. Across from her, on the couch, was Leah, staring thoughtfully at the figure standing between her and Soniqua while a white bat sat on one of the cushions next to her. That figure was the nameless alien Hemlock had chosen as their last roomie.

The little creature was short; even Leah stood at least half-a-foot or more over her. Her eyes were dead black, shaped like almonds. Her coloration made Icy cringe. Her skin was a vibrant green, while her hair was a bright purple. On top of that, she was clad in a bright yellow basketball jersey. It made her eyes hurt just looking at it. The part that made the green girl really stand out, though, was the extra pair of arms growing out of her shoulders; in truth, it made Icy a little nervous, sharing a room with a creature so significantly _different_ from everyone else at Cloud Tower.

"Hey, Ice, give me a hand here, will you? Help us figure out what this one's name is."

"I already told you my name-"

"And not a single one of us has the vocal cords to say it. We need something simple and evocative. Something catchy."

"Just pick a name for the little freak and get it over with. Some of us want to get out of here before classes start."

Icy and Leah both shot Soniqua dirty looks. The bat sitting next to Leah shot forward, grabbing at Soniqua's bangs while it dangled in her face, swinging from side to side in order to dodge Soniqua's frantic attempts to bat it off her face.

"She's not a freak, you puffed-up little-"

"Wait, you can talk? When did this happen?"

"I could always talk. You just wouldn't listen. You were to bus-oof!"

The bat had stopped moving, and Soniqua managed to catch her with her hand, knocking the smaller creature onto the floor. Leah hurried forward, scooping up her familiar before Soniqua could do anything else to it.

"Let it go! I want it dead!"

"Foxglove didn't mean to freak you out. She just doesn't like people talking down about other people. She does it to me, too."

"Look, both of you, just calm down. Foxglove, apologize."

"No."

"Don't make me kill the rest of my buzz trying to kill you, you litt-"

"That's it! Buzzkill. That's your name."

The little nonhuman made a face. It made her sound so . . . _serious_. But, it was probably better than the other names Leah could have come up with, given time. Besides, the name probably wouldn't stick. _Hopefully_.

Hours later, Tecna found herself wishing that she'd turned Pariah down that morning. The girl she was leading around was extremely weird, which had begun grating her nerves after about half-an-hour. She could accept the name; Pariah had said the girl was from Raxxos III, where children were named once the doctors discovered what sex the child was, and the name couldn't be changed later if the doctor screwed up. Judging by the inappropriateness of the name (Edward), she'd been mistaken for a boy while in the womb. That wasn't so bad. The kid's fetish for talking about herself in the third person, on the other hand, was very bad. Heading up to her room, she told the kid to wait outside while she got something.

Fortunately, no one else was in the room, or so she thought; she didn't really want to explain that she'd been following some little freak around, trying to make sure she didn't skip class or run away. Throwing the door to her room open, she stopped dead at the sight in front of her. It took a few seconds to register exactly what she was seeing.

Musa was sitting on her bed, lips locked with those of Toxica, the two of them writhing around in each other's arms. Tecna almost retched, and then cleared her throat loudly. The two in front of her ignored her. She decided to take more drastic measures.

"What the hell are you doing!"

One of Musa's eyes opened, and when she saw Tecna, she pushed Toxica back a little. It took the older student a few seconds to get the hint. Pulling back, she looked over at Tecna and fired out a response.

"We're catching up. Mind leaving?"

"No, you're the one who's leaving. Now."

"But we're not done-"

"Now."

Toxica made an apologetic gesture to Musa and left. As she passed Tecna, the younger girl heard her mutter something that sounded like "intolerant bitch". Tecna followed her with her eyes, making sure Toxica had left. She turned back to Musa, who now looked furious.

"What's wrong with you? You don't need to go along with her just because she's older. She tries to force herself onto everyone-"

"Shut up. You had no right to kick her out. Now, out of my way."

Musa began to storm off, shoulder-checking Tecna as she passed. Tecna grabbed her shoulder, which turned out to be a mistake. As soon as her hand touched Musa's skin, the other girl spun around and punched her in the jaw. Tecna dropped to the ground, clutching the side of her head, while Musa stormed out of the room. After about a minute, Tecna got up, probing her teeth to see if any had been knocked loose. She opened the door to her common room to find Edward standing there, looking at her.

"Are you all right? Edward heard yelling-"

"Get the hell away from me, you little freak!"

Edward made a noise that sounded like "Eep" and ran out. Tecna let out a long sigh. Her day had gone from bad to worse in the space of a few minutes, and it would probably go further downhill after Pariah found out that she'd frightened off the kid she was supposed to be watching. At this point, though, she didn't really care about that. Now, the only question was, what to do before she got in trouble?

Icy heard two shrieks as she walked into the library. For a moment, she was too worn down to care; she'd forgotten how rough it was for a freshman to get accustomed to life at Cloud Tower. It wasn't the classes or the teachers, but the older students that made it tough. Hazing was a fact of life at Cloud Tower, even if you had tried, however unwillingly, to take over the universe the year before.

The thing that got her attention was the student she almost tripped over as she crossed the threshold. She was scooting backwards on her butt, staring up over some of the shelves. Whatever she was scared of, Icy had to guess that it was huge, even though she couldn't see anything. It wasn't any problem with her vision; the Cauchemar appeared as your greatest fear, but only took that form for you. Icy remembered meeting it during her first freshman year, and had still never fully gotten over it.

Bending down, she grabbed the younger student under the armpits and hoisted her up. The girl immediately shot her hand forward and grabbed an intricately carved staff from the ground, clutching it as though her life depended on it. As soon as she saw Icy, the girl flinched away, though not any further into the library than she was already. This was a bit of a problem; Icy had apparently acquired a reputation over the summer, and most of the new students shied away from her whenever possible. No matter how hard she tried to convince them she wasn't the monster Darcy had made her out to be, all of them except for Buzzkill (the name had caught on) kept their distance.

Speaking of Buzzkill, she came tearing around a set of shelves, followed by a small group of laughing girls led by Lucy, the student Darcy had manipulated for most of the last year. Icy caught Buzzkill, shooting a dirty look at Lucy, who flipped her off in return. Icy looked over the other girl's shoulder when something came around the corner of the shelves. Lucy took a quick glance and vacated, followed by her lackeys. The nameless freshman girl took off as well while Icy held Buzzkill in place, hoping that the non-human would face her fears and show Cauchemar that she wasn't completely terrified of it.

Icy saw a man whose brown hair was streaked with blond, tall and thin. He was smiling, but there was no warmth in it. His eyes were dead, showing no emotion whatsoever. She had no idea what Buzzkill was seeing, but she would have preferred seeing that. In fact, she would have rather seen anything other than her father. The man walked over to her, his smile widening.

"Well, if it isn't my favorite member of the Trix trio. Although, I must confess being bored with this body. I was hoping you'd bring something more . . . _original_ than this."

"Sorry to disappoint you. Don't you have something better to do than scaring little girls? One would think you're some kind of pervert."

"Cute. You know full well that I have nowhere else to go. Unless you'd be willing to lend a body . . . "

Icy shuddered at the proposal. It was well-known that Cauchemar wanted a physical body again (although no one knew what had happened to the old one), and it wasn't above soliciting students to loan their bodies to it, much like hiring a prostitute. For some reason, it desperately wanted to use _her_ body, which creeped her out. During her last year, she'd privately hoped that Cauchemar and Darcy would wipe each other out; it hadn't happened, but it had been a nice dream.

"I'd never let you possess me. Especially not after-"

"Oh, wah-wah. Poor little me. Daddy doesn't love me, sisters hate me, Mommy doesn't care. You're such a whiner, and you're starting to bore again. In fact, I believe I'll go be a, what did you call me? Ah yes, pervert. So many new, fresh minds to scar. Ta-ta, darling. Be seeing you again."

With a tip of the hand, Cauchemar walked off. Icy let go of Buzzkill, just now realizing that she'd been hugging her hard enough to hurt. Buzzkill slipped out of her opening arms, muttering something about getting a book. Icy shook her head, trying to get Cauchemar's words out of her mind. Maybe trying to finish some of the work she'd been assigned would help. It probably wouldn't, but the thought that it might made her feel a little better.

"If I recall, our bargain was perfectly clear. We help you save your brother's little brat, and you help us. Now, I will ask you again: Where did you hide the Planar Orb?"

Virus was pacing around the outer edge of the summoning circle she'd used to activate the Phylactery of Souls. It had taken quite a while, and a few threats of attacks against the "little brat" in question, but Virus had finally gotten Daphne to come out. Getting useful information from her was another task entirely. Daphne had despised the Dragon Cult when she was alive, and the time after her demise had made her even more resistant to their demands. Unfortunately, her brother, a high-level member of the Cult, had entrusted her with several items, planning to gather them up after he had weathered the gathering storm on his home planet. Obviously, he had failed; now Daphne was the only one who knew where these artifacts were, and she wasn't talking.

"I don't deal with scum like you. He was a fool to trust you-"

"And you're the greater fool for trying to trick us! Morpheus and Goshira risked their lives and well-being to advance your cause, and it's time to pay the piper on this one. So, will you help willingly, or will we have to bring Hirine into this?"

Daphne's insubstantial body wavered, as close to a shudder as she could ever come. The name Hirine conjured up nasty images for anyone who had heard of her. An insane Methusaleh that fancied herself a goddess, Hirine ruled over the Nekote shapeshifters, magic-stealing cat-people that terrified all magic-users on their homeworld. The real threat, though, was Hirine's ability to consume spirits; she'd wiped out an entire race of spectral beings once on a whim, and showed no constraints about eliminating other races, spiritual or not. The threat of Hirine wiping out the last true bit of Sparx culture quickly convinced Daphne to tell Virus what she knew.

"It's in the eastern hemisphere of Sitorius III. The only problem is, I put a large teleport blocker around it, at least a ten-mile radius. I didn't want anyone having an easy time getting it. It's in a cave facing north on top of an obsidian mountain in the Dengal range."

"Excellent. See how easy it is when you do what you're supposed to? Now, back into the Phylactery, before I decide you're a waste of effort to bring back."

Daphne nodded and, without ceremony, faded out. Virus picked up the Phylactery and walked out the door. She was going to need muscle for this one. The Nemesis was already out looking for the Black Zodiac, so that was out of the question. She decided that she'd rather ask the Dragon Knight over Tenebra. He at least listened to her. Now, she simply had to stop by and pick him up, and then they would proceed directly to the Planar Orb. _If only it would be as easy as that_.

_

Tecna was wandering the halls of Alfea, trying to find something to do. Ostensibly she was looking for Edward, but she didn't really care about her; she was just really bored and was trying to take advantage of the fact that she'd gotten a free pass out of classes for today. She decided to sneak into the library, which seemed as good a place to hide as any. She had actually gotten so far as to find an interesting book and pull it from the shelves when her phone went off, signaling a text message. She opened her phone. It was from Musa. After a few seconds of thought, she opened it.

Miss Faragonda wants to see us.

Tecna shook her head. She didn't want to see either Musa or Miss Faragonda, and especially didn't want to see both of them at once. But if she didn't, she'd probably get into more trouble than she was in now. Slapping her phone shut, she replaced the book on the shelf and left the library, letting her breath out in a frustrated sigh. _This cannot possibly be good_.

She pushed the door to Miss Faragonda's office open, ready to be chewed out for scaring Edward off. She was so prepared for trouble that, when Miss Faragonda said, "I need you two to do a favor for me", she immediately started defending herself.

"Look, next time, find someone else to follow the little weirdo around!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing. I was just prepared for something completely different."

"I see. Now, I need the two of you to-"

"I'm sorry, but can we possibly get someone else working on this, whatever it is? Honestly, I don't want to work with a close-minded person. She might not catch all the options and could get me killed-"

"I want it to be the two of you. Now, I need you recover a crystal ball. It's in one of the caves on Mount Carron. You'll know where that is, Tecna, since the mountain is on your homeworld. You might run into a little opposition, but not much. Now, run along and get it."

"Find someone else. I'm not doing it, and especially not with _her_."

"Maybe 'favor' wasn't the right word to use in this situation. And besides, you still owe me for scaring off a very promising young student. You will either do this, or I will make this year very . . . _difficult_ for you. Do I make myself clear?"

Tecna nodded, too stunned into submission to speak. Turning, she silently followed Musa out the door, heading for a safe place to open a portal in.

Icy was still in a bit of a haze from her encounter with Cauchemar, and was aimlessly wandering the halls in search of something to distract her from it when she heard someone else scream, followed by a familiar voice.

"You've got pretty hands. It'd be a shame if anything happened to them. Now-"

Icy had ran toward the screen, and found Hemlock kneeling on the back of a freshman. Her sword was still sheathed, but she had a very small, very sharp knife in her left hand, while her right was holding up the other girl's long red-orange hair. Icy didn't think; she grabbed Hemlock by her long braid, pulling her up and off the other girl. While Hemlock was still coming up, Icy grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her against the wall, pinning her there with her arms.

"What the Hell is wrong with you? Where's Leah?"

"Ditched her. Just can't be myself around her. She gets all bitchy and whiny, just like you got around Darcy back in the day."

"I don't believe it. You're just as much a monster as you were back then, except you don't have anyone to make you look good by comparison."

"So what? At least I'm not jumping ship every time something changes. I'm just being myself, which is something you don't understand. Now, if you'll excuse me . . . "

Hemlock head-butted Icy, though not hard enough to break anything. It did accomplish what she wanted; Icy fell backwards, hands over her face to keep Hemlock from hitting her there again. Hemlock walked over to her and jabbed her quickly in the stomach before walking off, cackling evilly as she went. Icy was on her knees, sucking in air to replace that which Hemlock had displaced with her punch, while the other girl slowly crawled over to her.

"Thanks for saving me. Are . . . are you all right?"

"Huhn-no-huhn-proble-huhn-lem."

When Icy had recovered enough breath to sit up, she was struck at how much this girl looked like Bloom. Sure, her eyes were grey instead of blue, and the clothes were a little different, but those were the only differences. Was that why she'd stepped in? Had she just felt that she _needed_ to protect this little doppelganger of Darcy's nemesis because of the resemblance? She hoped that it was just her naturally good nature and not some twisted urge to repent of her involuntarily evil ways of last year. It took her a moment to realize that she was staring at the girl.

"Um . . . some of us freshmen are meeting in an empty classroom in a few minutes. Want to join us?"

"Oh, uh, sure. Here, take this."

Icy generated a small ice crystal and held it up against the girl's eye, which was beginning to swell. The girl put her hand over it, giving Icy a grateful smile in return. The two of them slipped down the halls, eventually coming to a classroom Icy knew to be abandoned for years after an incident involving a summoned gargoyle and an insane ex-teacher. The redheaded girl pushed the door open with her free hand, revealing Buzzkill, the staff-wielding girl from the library and another, a blond dressed like some kind of skater. The skater jumped up when she saw Icy.

"Geez, Alice, what the hell did you bring her for? I happen to like my freedom, if you don't mind."

"She saved me from another student, and since she's a freshman too, I thought-"

"You thought wrong. I've heard stories about her, and I know you've heard them too, so don't-"

"Hold up, sister. Icy's a nice person, not a monster. I've heard the same hateful stuff spouted by one of my roommates for the last twenty-four hours, and it doesn't add up to what I've seen. Besides, she's been through this before. Don't you think it would help to know what's coming?"

"I'd rather not risk it, kid. Now, if you'd like to leave with her, I see no problem making this a threesome."

"Twosome. She saved my butt from an older student just now, so I go where she goes."

"Same here. I saw her stand up to an older student-"

"There are no students older than her-"

"Higher placed, if you like that. Point is, she stared down that kid, plus whatever the Hell it is haunts the library. We've all heard the same stories you have, but we all choose to give her a chance before passing sentence. You can do the same, or you can leave, your choice."

Icy felt a wash of relief. She'd never expected anyone, except for possibly Leah, to stand up for her the way these strangers had just now. Maybe everything wasn't going to be as bad as she'd thought. The blond girl looked a little stunned to find herself with no support, but recovered eventually, muttering "Okay, she can stay." The other girls cheered. Alice, the redhead, made introductions.

"Okay, this is Josie," she indicated the one with the staff, "you know Buzzkill already, I'm Alice, and this is Sissy."

"It's _Sisseria_, not 'Sissy'. You can at least get my name right."

"Sisseria sounds stupid. Besides, everyone calls me Buzzkill. At least your nickname sounds something like your real name."

"Is it too much to ask that you little zoms at least get my name right?"

"How big is it?"

"How big is what?"

"The stick up your butt. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were rich or something. You've certainly got the attitude."

Sissy crossed her arms and huffed, drawing laughter from everyone else. _Yeah_, Icy thought, _this year might just turn out all right after all_.

"For the last time, I don't want to talk about it. Whatever disgusting things you do with her, keep them out of my room!"

With that retort, Tecna returned her gaze forward, shooting through the air above the Dengals, Musa trailing a little behind. She had tried several times to bring up the topic of her and Toxica's relationship, only to be shot down by Tecna every time. It was a little frustrating, but Musa soon realized that she should probably let Tecna concentrate; she personally had no idea which mountain they were looking for, and she didn't want to find out what Miss Faragonda would do to her if they screwed up. It had been bad enough trying to get around the weird teleportation baffle; each time they tried to open a portal to the mountain in question, it got shunted a few miles away, meaning that they had to fly there once they figured that little kernel of information out. Consequently, neither of them was in a particularly good mood at the moment.

Tecna gave no warning when she found the mountain, simply diving down towards one of the summits. Musa almost missed it, and had to loop around to land next to her. Tecna was about to walk in when Musa grabbed her by the shoulder.

"Remember how we couldn't just teleport here? There might be more defenses. Give me a second."

Musa powered down, losing her wings and changing her clothes from a red sequined dress to her shirt and baggy jeans. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a black veil and wrapped it around her face. When she transformed back to her fairy form, the lower half of her face was covered in a metal mask studded with fangs. Tecna looked a little repulsed by it, and Musa fought the urge to smile, knowing that it wouldn't help matters any. Instead she nodded, and the two of them entered the cave.

It was immediately obvious that someone had recently been through the cave; the broken traps and smashed statues indicated that Musa had been thinking the right way when she had suspected traps, although whoever had gone through first had taken care of those with no problem. She glanced over at one point to see Tecna trembling a little, especially when they passed a massive pile of rubble with metal pieces sticking out of it. She was spooked, but Musa wasn't sure why. Granted, she was a little scared herself, but she wasn't going to let it show, especially not while Tecna was already worried. Her keen ears picked up voices ahead, and she motioned to Tecna to keep quiet. The other girl nodded, clearly not wanting to alert anyone that might not be friendly to their presence.

"Why can't they all be this easy?"

"It's not. The Watchers are bound to have sent someone to capture the Orb for themselves, and it'll probably be part of their A-squad."

"If someone was coming, they'd have gotten here by now. We're in the clear. Now come on, we have to get outside this stupid portal blocker before we can leave."

Two figures practically walked into Musa and Tecna on their way out. The first was a massive armored knight; the armor was probably some kind of oversized battlesuit, rather than the man naturally being that big. His companion, on the other hand, was horrific. Under her shocks of screamingly bright green hair, her face was split down the middle. The right side was normal, but the left looked like a metal skull, right down to the missing nose and eye socket, within which was a glowing red diode that presumably functioned as her eye. Both arms looked like they were the same metal as the skull; in the left hand was a small crystal ball, probably the one they had been sent to retrieve for Miss Faragonda. The ball immediately sunk into her palm, disappearing from view.

"'Part of their A-squad', indeed! They've got no idea what they're after, don't you? Don't want to talk, huh? Fine. I got the one with the mask!"

The green-haired cyborg rushed at Musa, the fingers on her right hand elongating and fusing together into a razor-edged blade. Musa took to the limited airspace in the cave, shooting over the girl's first attack and retaliating with a sonic shockwave that pushed her into the ground. Tecna activated the energy shield that was the only combat-relative spell she knew, hoping she could outlast her armored foe. Surprisingly, he made no move to attack her, but held his massive blade defensively. His companion noticed in a hurry.

"Chivalry be damned, hit her!"

"I . . . I can't do it! Switch me!"

"Fine! Pussy!"

Skull-Face spun and leapt at Tecna, right leg extended. She hit Tecna in the left side, where her ribs would have been if she still had them. It felt like getting punched by a battering ram. Some system died there, and her energy shield flickered like it was going to die out. Her opponent crowed.

"Did I break something important, Princess? Wouldn't it be a shame if I broke every piece of equipment in that nice, custom-made body of yours? Let's see if I can!"

The girl rushed forward, slashing at Tecna's chest. She moved her shield in the way, and was horrified when the blade cut a huge gash in it. The next attack proved to be too much; her shield died completely when it was hit, and nothing she did could get it to turn back on. Her opponent hiked up the right leg of her pants, revealing that her leg was made of the same metal as her arms and face.

"Gotta love mercurion, especially with my powerset. I can make it do _anything_ I want. Honestly, though, I wish I'd gotten as lucky as you when it came to replacement parts. I mean, I'm such a mon-"

"Virus, move!"

The armored warrior grabbed Musa and spun, hurling her at Tecna. Virus calmly moved out of the way, but Musa, desperate to stay in the fight, grabbed at her opponent. Her fingers caught in the eye visor of his helmet. The helmet came off when she went down the cave passage, narrowly missing Tecna as she went flying. Tecna didn't bother checking on her companion; she was more focused on the sight of her boyfriend Timmy staring back at her from over the chestplate of his armor. He looked horrified at being exposed, like he couldn't think of anything to say. She couldn't, either, but Musa broke the silence effectively.

"Traitor! Die!"

Before anyone could react, Musa unleashed a scream, focused in a narrow band that passed over Tecna's right arm and Virus' left before hitting Timmy in the chest. Every system in Tecna's arm died when it was hit, causing it to drop limply at her side; Virus' arm simply exploded into millions of metal droplets. When it finally hit Timmy, he was knocked head-over-heels down the passageway. Unfortunately, Musa's scream started bringing down the cave. She quickly grabbed Tecna and dragged her away from the falling rock, while Virus scrambled the other way. When all was said and done, Tecna and Musa were trapped in the cave, while Virus and Timmy were in the relatively clear exit. Once she was certain no more rock was going to fall from the ceiling, Virus stretched the stump of her left arm out. Soon, tiny droplets of mercurion started oozing out between the cave-in, crawling up her leg and re-forming into her arm. Timmy pushed himself up in time to see this.

"That's not going to help, you know. The Planar Orb-"

"I have a huge sheet of this stuff that replaces the muscles over my back. I stashed the Orb there during the fight. I have to ask, why the hold-up with the girl? It's not like your family has any problem with killing kids."

"She's my girlfriend. I couldn't bring myself to hurt her."

"Huh. You never struck me as the technophilia type. Well, since she's gonna die down there, it's not like we need to worry about that anymore now, do we?"

"But . . . we have to save her! Both of them-"

"Please. Even _if_ I was feeling merciful, and after the other one blew my arm to Hell I'm really not, what makes you think she'd take you back? I mean, we tried to kill them, remember? Well technically, her buddy killed her, but you see my point. You wouldn't have a chance at winning her again and you know it. There we go, all better. Now, let's get out of here. I still have to initiate that little Trix brat properly. Are you coming?"

Timmy took one last, long look at the pile of rubble cutting his girlfriend – _ex-girlfriend _ – off from the rest of the world, and then followed Virus out of the cave, eager to leave all of a sudden.

"They're made of _obsidian_, for God sake. What did you think would happen when you shot all that sonic energy out?"

"It was focused as tightly as I could make it. There shouldn't have been any cave-in-"

"But you didn't think it through! And thanks to you, we're going to die in here, while whoever that girl was runs off with whatever it was Miss Faragonda sent us after! Great job."

"Yeah, well, I'm not the one punking out of the fight! What exactly did you think you were going to do to Timmy with that shield, anyway? Don't you know any offensive spells?"

Tecna turned away at that, refusing to answer Musa's question. Idly, she picked up her disabled arm and dropped it, hoping that the systems contained within had only been temporarily shut down and had rebooted by now. The limp drop proved that it had, in fact, been trashed. If she got out of this, she would be in need of _major_ repairs, and that would mean telling her father what had happened. He'd inevitably get upset and confront Miss Faragonda, and the little secret concerning who her parents _really_ were would probably get blown during the fight. Lost in her head, it took her a moment to hear Musa's question.

"What?"

"I said, how much tech makes up your body, anyway? I've always wondered and, since we're not going anywhere anytime soon, it seemed like a conversation starter. So, are we talking cyborg or full-blown android here?"

"Cyborg, but barely. I'm not much more than a brain and some guts in this body. My family is cursed. At some point in our lives, we start . . . I don't know, just rotting away. I caught it very young, and very badly. It's to the point where, in order to do any magic at all, I have to have systems put into my body that create the effect."

"And you don't have any kind of magical attack because . . . ?"

"My mom's a pacifist, and my dad had to fight tooth-and-nail to get that shield put in. She'd lose it if I got any kind of offensive spell programmed in."

"And that girl we fought, is she some kind of cousin or something?"

"Could be, for all I know. Dad had an older sister that got disowned when they were young, and this could be her kid. It's hard to tell with her face all messed up, but she did have my grandfather's hair color, so it's possible."

"Wait a minute, I've heard this before. Well, the general stuff, anyway. My dad told me all about this family curse stuff when I was younger. You're . . . you're a princess, aren't you?"

Tecna gave Musa a look that clearly said, _Please drop it_. Musa stifled a laugh.

"Seriously, why don't you want people to know? I mean, Stella gives you all sorts of crap for you not being royalty, why don't you throw it in her face?"

"Because I don't want people treating me like I'm better than everyone else! Just look at Stella! Everyone kisses her ass just because of who her dad is, and she just laps it up. I want people to like me for who I am, not who my family is. Is that so much to ask?"

"At least tell the rest of the gang, all right? You can't keep hiding this for the rest of your life."

"Right, just like how you were going to tell them about your little fling with Toxica-"

"It's not a fling. Just for the record, I've been after girls since I was twelve. That thing with Riven was to throw any suspicion off my trail after you hooked up with Timmy. We've been together since-"

"What do you mean, after I hooked up with Timmy?"

"Well, you're kind of cute, and I thought-"

"No. Never in a million years, so don't even bring it up again."

"Fine. How about this, though: If we get out of this alive, we both tell our friends our little secrets. Gives us something to live for."

"I don't know-"

"Would you rather someone find out independently and blab it to the whole school? I've been trying to find the right time to tell everyone mine, and I don't think I can do it alone. Deal?"

Tecna nodded, idly wondering if the promise would have to be kept. In the back of her mind, she realized that Musa was right. Having that little goal _did_ give her reason to get out of the cave. She sat down and waited for who knew how long (she wasn't wearing a watch, and had left her cell phone at Alfea) when Musa shot up.

"I've got it! I know how we're going to get out of here!"

"How?"

"Remember when we tried teleporting here, and we kept getting thrown around the mountain range every time?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Our portals weren't being blocked, but diverted. If we try opening one somewhere near this mountain, it might shunt us outside the area of the baffle, and then we'll be able to get home with the next one!"

"That . . . that might actually work. I don't think I can make a portal right now, though. I'm pretty sure that circuit is in the arm you fried."

"Oh. I think I have enough juice to get us out of here, at least. We can pool power to get home."

The portal Musa opened flickered a little as it formed, and Tecna was all of a sudden struck with the image of getting phased out of reality by walking through a faulty portal. Musa wrapped her arm around Tecna's shoulders and the two of them stepped through . . . and found themselves in the crisp air on top of one of the lesser peaks. Tecna almost cried in relief. She took Musa's right hand in her left and felt her magic flow through her arm and into Musa. The next portal seemed perfectly stable, and on the other side was the same courtyard they'd used to leave hours ago. The only difference was, now, Miss Faragonda and Toxica were standing there. Toxica rushed forward and grabbed Musa in a bearhug, squeezing her harder than might be thought possible. Tecna walked forward, looking Miss Faragonda in the eyes when she got to her.

"Someone beat us to it. I don't know who they were, but they beat us there, beat us up and left us to die. Now, what was so important to you to risk our lives for?"

"You're not really in a position to expect an answer right now, Tecna. Both of you get cleaned up and taken care of. I'll deal with this."

Toxica let Musa go, and the two younger girls left in a hurry. As soon as they were gone, Toxica rounded on Miss Faragonda.

"You unbelievable bitch. They could have died, and you're not even going to tell them why?"

"They're not ready to know. When they're initiated-"

"_Initiated?_ No. You're not screwing up any more students' lives, especially not theirs."

"Just because you're in love with one of them doesn't mean they can't help us. Besides, those two and their friends are the most prepared to handle these sorts of things, as last year proved."

"Find some outside talent. Do you know how messed up we are because of this? Kara has nightmares the few times she can actually get to sleep. Arista almost died two years ago, and-"

"Enough. Gather the others. We need to meet with our Cloud Tower counterparts immediately to discuss the loss of the Planar Orb."

"_The Planar Orb!_ You sent them after that! No wonder they almost died, that's the one thing the Cult needs the most to finish their ceremony! Did it occur to you that they'd send some major talent to recover it, or did you think they'd just ignore it? It should have been some of _us_, the ones used to fighting the Cult, that went after it, not some "possible" recruits!"

Miss Faragonda lightly slapped Toxica across the face, effectively shutting her up. The younger girl rubbed her cheek, glaring at the headmistress, who ignored her ferocious gaze.

"Round up your little friends. We have work to do."

Miss Faragonda turned and walked away, leaving Toxica behind. The girl resisted the urge to launch a poisoned spitwad at Miss Faragonda's back. She had to find some way to get Miss Faragonda to stop risking everyone's lives pointlessly, even if it meant a fight. That would have to wait until she had more time to plan what she would say to her possible comrades. She walked down the halls, heading for Pariah's room. She'd be the first to alert about the emergency meeting.

Darcy looked herself over in the mirror. Aside from her bangs, which had turned black and stayed long, her hair had shortened considerably and turned bright cherry red. Her skin had turned a dusky gray-brown, while the whites of her eyes had turned a pale yellow. It was a bad look, but it had the desired effect; even she didn't recognize herself. She was still trying to teach herself to recognize this as her new look when a knock came at her door. She turned to see Virus standing there, looking her over.

"So he was right. Huh. Well, no going back after this. Last chance to walk away."

"No way. I want any chance to get back at the universe for messing up my life. Lead on."

Virus turned and walked down the hallway with Darcy following closely behind. She was excited about this. Soon, she would be able to use her powers to make everyone, especially her sister and that little brat Bloom, pay. Nothing could ruin her mood right now. _Just be patient, and everything will be fine_.


	4. Beautiful Nightmare

I do not own Winx Club. I do own a staggering amount of characters that I made up for this project. If you want to borrow any of them, just ask, for I am a benevolent being.

This project picks up after Season One. Haven't seen any other episodes, and I probably couldn't get it to work right otherwise.

To answer your first three questions: Yes, I am a guy. No, I'm not gay. Yes, really.

Yes, it's long. I needed it to be this long because I had a lot that I wanted to get down in this chapter. Deal.

**Year of the Dragon**

Beautiful Nightmare

"You seem to be on top of things, so you tell me: why can't I use my powers?"

Darcy needed something to talk about while she and Virus were walking to God-knows-where, and her sudden inability to use her magic seemed like an appropriate topic. Virus snorted in response, an impressive feat considering that she didn't have anything remotely close to a nose.

"Three reasons. First, you're out of practice. You never really used your own magic much once you took over your sisters, choosing instead to rely on their pretty handy bags of tricks. Spending three months or so in an antimagic field didn't help matters any."

"Okay, sounds reasonable."

"Second, you're not much on the power scale. When you get right down to it, your power levels are pathetic. Fortunately for you, you're an evil genius, so you could usually figure out how to make what little power you had work for you. And third, and this is the most important, you don't have all that much practice with magic in the first place, seeing as you were kind of a late bloomer with your powers."

"Ex-_cuse_ me? I came into my powers-"

"About a month after you got into Cloud Tower. In fact, I remember a heartfelt letter from a pair of sisters practically _begging_ Miss Griffin to let their other sister in even though her magic hadn't quite caught yet, because they were sure she had some buried in her somewhere. I kind of did some work study stuff for Griffin during my summers so I could pay off my tuition. One of the jobs I did was reading her mail. Plus, I was following you around once you got there just to see if you really did have any magic. You were so cute trying to fend off older students without any power to back you up. And your sisters, always stepping in to-"

"SHUT UP! You don't know what you're talking about, you deformed bitch!"

Darcy's fists were clenched, and she was ready to start swinging them at her savior-_cum_-boss. She had tried to bury those memories and the feelings associated with them for years, and the last thing she needed was for Virus to start bringing them back to the surface. _No more tears, kid._ She found herself repeating her father's mantra over and over in her head, willing all the remembered hurt away as hard as she could. It took her a few minutes before she could look Virus in the eyes again. The older witch didn't seem the slightest bit phased by Darcy's outburst.

"Hurry up, we're almost there."

"Where are we going, exactly? I mean, shouldn't I have been given some kind of explanation after my initiation?"

"We're going to the place where you can get that explanation. You see, we are trying to acquire the permanent services of one Morpheus. He has access to a copy of the _Libris Immortus_, as well as a host of powerful artifacts. And since we couldn't get our hands on the Black Zodiac he wanted, we're sending you in to try and sweet-talk him. Plus, you'll have all the time you need to get reacquainted with your powers while you're talking to him. Here we are."

They had arrived at a castle, though the building had seen better days. The walls were crumbling – in fact, one had collapsed entirely – and the wooden parts had mostly rotted away. Darcy was not impressed. They were trying to get the guy that lived _here_? She'd rather work with the little pixie brats that had stopped her last year. She made a comment, and Virus chuckled.

"Oh, you have so much to learn." She said, raising her arm. "There are more worlds than just this one, and it is on one of those that Morpheus makes his home. This is just the most convenient spot to cross over. Behold, the Planar Orb!"

Darcy watched in awe as a small crystal orb rose out of Virus' liquid metal palm. The older girl wrapped her fingers around it as soon as it cleared her hand, grabbing Darcy with the other as she muttered a command phrase. In an instant the decrepit castle was gone, replaced by the inside of a great hall easily bigger than the entire structure they had left behind. Darcy was amazed. Virus grinned smugly.

"Welcome to the Dreaming. Here live dreamlings and nightmares stalking the landscape in search of sleeping minds in other realities to insert themselves in. This is Morpheus' home, and he should be coming-"

"Any second now, yes. Welcome at last to my humble abode, devotee of the Worldbreaker. Have you my Zodiac?"

Darcy was horrified at the creature standing in front of her. A set of eight horrific legs fused together at the hips to meld into a caved-in torso. Only one shoulder had an arm attached to it; the other was host to a mass of tentacles that writhed in eerie unison. His head was long and thin, arcing backwards to a long crest erupting from the top of his skull. This Morpheus was a monster of the highest caliber. Virus wanted her to "sweet-talk" _that_? Not possible.

"Great Dreamwalker, Lord of Nightmares, Walker of Worlds, I must regretfully inform you that we have failed to locate the Black Zodiac. It has been taken from its hiding place by those craven fools, the Watchers. As a token of my humiliation and supplication, I present you with this being, called Darcy by her forbears. I only hope that this can begin to make up for our failure."

"Wait, what? You're _giving_ me to _him_! You said-"

"I don't want it. The creature is powerless and full of fear and disgust at my appearance. It cannot even present itself properly. I will take the Nemesis instead, or nothing at all."

"You fail to notice, O Master of Fearful Slumber, that I said 'begin'. We shall locate other beings to attempt to make up for our failings."

Morpheus walked over to Darcy, inspecting her like she was a horse for sale. One of his tentacles brushed over her face, and she had to resist the urge to run screaming until she found a way out of this nightmare. Morpheus chuckled.

"Believe me, girl, when I say that this is no nightmare, but fact. The offer is accepted, but more suitable creatures must be found to replace the Zodiac. You have a week to procure more. And, Virus?"

"Yes, Great-"

"No titles. The others must be better than this, and vastly so. Understood?"

Virus bowed in response, eyes firmly staring at the ground for a full minute before she muttered the reverse of the command phrase she'd used to get to the Dreaming in the first place. She disappeared without any sort of flash or bang, no evidence of a departure at all; she was simply gone. Darcy was stunned into paralysis. All the trouble Virus had gone through to break her out of jail, and she was just going to _give_ her to this-?

"Best you not keep thinking of me as a monster. Imagine me as your master, and all will go better. If you wish to research your new object of worship, my library contains information beyond measure. I must rely on myself to find my Zodiac. Typical mortals, always full of empty words. I shall see you later."

The nightmare creature started walking off, stopping only when Darcy asked where she would be sleeping. He actually laughed when she asked.

"One does not need sleep in the Dreaming. Simply go to the library and do some much needed research. I will send for you when I feel you deserve my presence."

With that, Morpheus shambled off on his multiple legs, leaving Darcy alone in the hall. He had work to do, and he suspected he needed to start small. His new subject had given him a hint of where to begin. _Soon, you twisted schemer, I will pry the location of my property from your mind as you lie screaming. All in due time_.

_Pain. Fear. He's coming, and when he does it starts hurting again it always hurts he always comes you're always afraid wake up wake up WAKE UP WAKEUPWAKEUPWAKEUP-_

Icy sat straight up, drenched in cold sweat. She'd had the dream again, the one about her father. This one was worse than usual. She ran her hands over her face, pausing when she hit the thin, nearly invisible set of scars running across her cheek. They were tingling, something they always did when she had that particular nightmare. This was bad. She hadn't had the dream since before she'd come to Cloud Tower for her first freshman year. Whatever had brought it up now . . . ?

Icy realized suddenly that she could hear faint noises coming from the common area of her dorm. Grabbing her glasses, she saw on her clock that it was 3:17. Who else was up this early? Sliding carefully out from under her sheets so as not to wake Buzzkill, she left their shared room for the common area. She had her answer as soon as she opened the door.

Leah was sitting cross-legged in front of the television she'd brought to school, a game controller held firmly in both hands as she stared at the screen; the game seemed to be going through a cinematic sequence at the moment. She decided not to make any noise in case anyone might be sleeping lightly, but it made no difference; Leah turned to see her halfway down the stairs and immediately paused her game, looking a little worried.

"What's up?" she said, standing up and walking over. "How come you're up this early?"

"I . . . I had a bad dream. No, I don't want to talk about it," she said, for Leah had opened her mouth as soon as those first words came out. "I just came out here because I could hear some noise and – are you cold, or just jittery?"

This last question came up because, now that she took a close look, Icy could see little tremors going up and down Leah's body. Leah walked over to the couch and Icy saw, scattered on the floor, several tall, thin cans. She shook her head.

"You know those energy drinks aren't healthy, right? They're nothing but sugar and caffeine."

"Yeah, but they're _sooo_ good. Besides, I can just sleep in class; Hemlock'll let me copy her notes."

"Look, I know she's your friend, but she's not as nice as you think she is. I mean, just yesterday-"

And she told Leah the story of how she'd come across Hemlock in the halls, threatening to cut off another girl's hair. Leah nodded, though that might have just been another manifestation of the caffeine shakes, and picked up her controller.

"Yeah, I know she can be a jerk sometimes, but-"

"Jerk! She's downright evil! You remember what she was like during your freshman year, right? Following Darcy around, hanging on every word she said like she was the coolest person you ever saw. I'm kind of surprised Darcy didn't peg her to help her try and take over the world instead of me!"

Leah had no defense against that; now that she thought about it, Hemlock _had_ spent most of her free time with Darcy during their first year. And sure, maybe she did enjoy hazing newer students just a little too much, but surely that didn't make her full-blown evil, right? She posed the question to Icy, who made an exasperated noise.

"Now you're just trying to brush it under the rug, like Stormy and I did for Darcy. Face it, your friend's not one of the good guys."

Leah turned that idea over in her head, not liking how it sounded. Shrugging, she dug one of her hands into a massive bag of jellybeans sitting on the couch next to her, pulled a few out and tossed them into her mouth. Icy looked at her suspiciously.

"I thought you couldn't eat those because of your braces."

Leah turned and grinned at Icy, who took this time to take a good look at her; it was the first time she'd really seen her since the end of her junior year. Leah's braces were gone, but she'd replaced them with more metal, three rings in her left eyebrow. Icy forced herself to look over her old friend again, just to remind herself of what she looked like. She was still wearing the hooded sweatshirt her older brother had given her, red and long enough to be worn as a dress if need be; the sleeves were pushed up past her elbows, and would probably reach down past her fingertips if allowed to slip the whole way down. The portion of her legs not covered by her shirt was hidden by a slim black skirt that went down to her ankles, and her feet were, for the moment, bare of the sandals she wore all the time, even in the winter. Her hair was still the same ludicrous red, hanging down past her shoulders and streaked with black, something she insisted was natural. Her eyes were still the same non-color of newborn babies' eyes, another thing she said was natural. She'd gotten a little taller, but not by much; she'd always been a little shorter than most other girls. By the time she'd completed this quick study, Leah's attention had fully returned to her videogame, and Icy decided to sit and watch her. About five minutes in, Leah decided to ask the question that had been burning in her mind since she'd seen Icy for the first time after last year.

"Was Darcy really controlling you, or was that just a story you made up to get out of jail? I don't care either way, I just have to know."

Icy was a little hurt by the question. Leah had been backing her up so far, insisting that Icy was innocent. In all honesty, Leah's trust had been pretty much all that had been holding her together for her first day back. Had it all been talk, or was she just testing her? Either way, it was a little uncomfortable for her best (and, at this point, probably only real) friend to ask her something like this. After a minute of tense silence, she nodded.

"I don't remember much, but I know I would never have done anything like what I remember if I was in full control of myself. Happy now?"

Leah thought for a moment and then nodded her head. Icy let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Leah believed her; that was all she needed. They sat in silence a little longer before Leah asked another question.

"So, these new friends you told me about, when do I get to meet them?"

_This_ was something Icy could talk about. She'd told Leah about Josie, Alice and Sissy before she'd gone to bed, and Leah had seemed very interested in them. Icy just hoped she could keep Hemlock from trying to terrorize them when she introduced the two groups to each other. She thought about when their class schedules would allow them, trying to figure it out when Leah got an idea.

"How about we have breakfast together? I'm sure we can get one of the big tables if we get down there soon enough, so we can all sit together. How's that sound?"

"Yeah, um . . . do you think you could get Hemlock to not come with you guys when this happens? She and Alice might not exactly get along."

When Leah looked inquiringly at her about this comment, Icy told her the story of how exactly she'd met Alice, by rescuing her from Hemlock's private torture session. Leah swore at the end of this story, although that might have been because her character had just gotten hit by a giant man with a gas mask and syringes on his fingers.

"The game cheats! How are you supposed to get past him if he doesn't move from that one spot once you blow the wall up?"

"It might be a timing thing. Give me a try."

Leah handed over the controller, and Icy took over. She waited a minute to get the timing, then ran forward, acing the boss battle in one go. She handed the controller back to Leah, who was muttering dark things to herself about how the game cheated. Icy couldn't help but grin at this; the only things Leah seemed to take seriously were the video games, comics and role-playing games she devoted almost every free moment to. She leaned back into the couch, silently watching Leah power through her game until they heard Nova begin her early-morning workout in the room she shared with Soniqua about two hours later. Icy took this as a signal to get ready for the day, painfully aware of the fact that she hadn't gotten a lot of sleep. She slipped back to her room, leaving Leah sitting in front of their television.

"I don't see why we have to hang out with them. Freshies are pathetic."

"Yeah, like you weren't in the same-" Leah let out a humungous yawn, and then continued as if she hadn't, "situation when we were freshmen. Remember the little incident that brought us together?"

Hemlock scowled, but dropped her line of complaint and turned back to her breakfast. Unlike Alfea, which had strict guidelines involving general appearance and family wealth governing acceptance, Cloud Tower accepted pretty much anyone with the magical talent to pass the entrance exams. As a result, there was a greater variety of humanoid sub-species in attendance, which required a significantly more complicated kitchen in order to handle all of the different diets brought on by one's lifestyle or possible evolutionary quirks. For example, Hemlock, who had lived her entire life in a poor fishing village, had a dish of cold noodles and fish, while Soniqua had an airy egg dish, one of the few things people on her planet had evolved to eat without getting violently sick. Nova's and Leah's systems were close enough that they could eat what passed for a normal breakfast on both Earth and Solaria. All four of them looked over at Buzzkill's tray, which was covered in a pile of metal shavings; Buzzkill's species was composed mostly of metal, including blood like quicksilver, and ate metal to keep up their bodies.

"Hey, we're here. Can we just sit anywhere?"

Icy made a little wave as she and her new friends shuffled over. Alice sat next to Buzzkill, though that might have been more because that was the seat farthest from Hemlock than any liking for her fellow freshman. Josie squeezed in between Nova and Soniqua, while Sissy plopped into the last chair remaining, which happened to be next to Leah and Icy. Leah surreptitiously tried to steal a bite of the grey meat sitting on Sissy's tray, but she deflected the incoming fork with ease. Conversation started immediately: Josie began talking to Soniqua, for whose music she apparently had an infatuation, while Alice began a steady dialogue with Leah and Nova. Sissy and Hemlock each seemed determined to ignore everyone else at the table, although the younger of the two soon began a little rant about her food, which was apparently not prepared to her liking.

"Unbelievable! Can't those stupid zoms get this stuff old enou-ow!"

Sissy grabbed at her ear, which Leah had flicked to shut her up. She shot Leah a dirty look while holding her other hand over her food. A wave of bruise-colored energy poured from her palm, causing the meat to get greyer and, eventually, a little rotten-looking. Satisfied, Sissy dug in while Hemlock, finally interested in something, pointed at it with her chopsticks.

"What exactly is that you're eating? If I didn't know any better I'd say it was some kind of long-dead animal or something."

"Well, if she didn't just pick up the term 'zom' from someone else she met then Sissy's from Necrosa, which means that she's eating zombie meat. How'm I doing on that?"

Everyone at the table was staring at Leah, stunned that she could figure something like that out that quickly; seeing as she was from Earth, her knowledge of other planets' customs and cultures was, at best, minimal. Icy shook her head, knowing immediately how Leah had known that.

"She's not a genius. She probably just hacked the school's student registry to find out everyone's homeworlds and looked up some simple facts so she could look smart."

"Can't you let me have that one? I wanted them to think I was some kind of Sherlock Holmes-type genius. Is that too much to ask?"

"Wait a minute, I'm kind of curious," Nova said, "Why exactly are you eating rotten human flesh? It just seems kind of perverted to me."

"People that die on my world come back as zombies within hours. After they killed off all the livestock and vegetation, traders stopped coming to the planet. My people had to eat them to survive. After a few hundred years, we evolved to the point where that's the only thing we can get a whole lot of nutrients from. I _can_ eat other stuff, it's just not healthy."

"What's 'zom' mean?"

"Short for 'zombie', it's a Necrosan obscenity that basically means 'mindless drone'. From what the cultural website said it's the worst kind of insult you can throw out there. Just a little tidbit FYI. Hold up a minute."

Leah stood up and held up a pair of seniors that were passing their table. The first, who Leah addressed as "Vish", was a Piscean, a term used to describe the multiple species on their planet; judging by the pastel purple skin and veritable forest of slender spines, this one was from the Urchin sub-species. The other, her constant companion Blee'Gax, was bruise-colored sludge in a humanoid form. (_Author's Note: They're not major characters. I'm coming up with names for some minor Cloud Tower students so I can just throw the names out later and you'll have an idea of who it is I'm talking about. There's literally like, I don't know, three named Cloud Tower students that aren't bad guys, Mirta, Lucy, or copies of other characters from the series; I need more than that, so I'm introducing my own._) Leah whispered something in Vish's ear, to which the older girl nodded. They performed a complicated handshake that ended with a hug; impressively, Leah managed to hug Vish without impaling herself on the other girl's spines. The duo walked off while Leah sat down again.

"What was that about?" Alice, who had watched the whole exchange silently, asked.

"Basically I told her to spread the word that you guys are off-limits for the whole hazing bit. Vish has a lot of pull with the student population, and I have a lot of pull with her. She'll make sure you guys are left alone."

"You did that for us? Wow, you're really cool. I think this friendship might just work out."

"Meh. I don't need you to look after me. I can take care of myself."

Icy smiled a little. Despite Hemlock and Sissy acting surly and unfriendly, introducing her two groups of friends to each other had turned out to be a good idea. And with them around to back her up, she might be able to tough out all the crap she would probably take this year. This was looking like it would be a good day after all.

"C'mon Stella, Mirta, we're going to be late for class!"

Flora, having just come back from breakfast, entered her and her friends' dorm to find Mirta sitting on the couch, adjusting her leggings and muttering to herself. Bloom and Musa, who had come in with her, went to their separate rooms to get their books; Tecna was in the infirmary, having new student Edward fix her arm, while Stella had decided to sleep in rather than eat breakfast. Flora thought that Stella might be trying to starve herself to lose weight again, but chose not to voice that opinion in front of her friends. Flora went over to the couch, where she'd left her books, and sat down next to Mirta.

"What's got you so worked up?"

"I can't put a hex on her. I can't do _anything_ to her, and it worries me. And she makes me so _angry_ with all her elitist talking. I don't know how you put up with her."

Flora understood immediately the difficulties Mirta had putting up with Stella. The older girl thought anyone that didn't come from royalty or money wasn't worth knowing. She only put up with Flora and, until yesterday's revelation session with her and Musa, Tecna because Musa and Bloom liked them. Flora had needed to literally twist Stella's arm to make her share her room with Mirta after she had been placed with them at the beginning of the year. More important was the other piece of information Mirta had passed along.

"Wait, are you saying you can't use your mag-"

"Shhh! Don't say it out loud like that! If the teachers find out, they might kick me out of here. I couldn't go home if I got expelled, not after all the fights me and my mom had about me transferring. Oh God, I really don't want to have to go home, not like this."

Flora was about to try and reassure Mirta, and maybe suggest that she go to Miss Faragonda about this problem, when the door to Mirta's room burst open to let Stella out. Her long blond hair spilled over a body that could barely be considered clothed by most decent people's standards; Stella liked to flaunt what she had, and she had a lot. Mirta shot her a dirty look that she ignored, something she often did with Flora as well. She fell in behind Bloom and Musa, the latter of whom she looked down her nose at a little; it was well known to the student body that she had a bit of a feud with Musa's girlfriend Toxica, and it appeared that Musa's secret relationship with her had hurt her status in Stella's mind. Flora and Mirta got up and followed the three of them, off to one of the classes they all shared.

Today, their first class combined the best aspects of alchemy, potion-making and chemistry, teaching them how to make all kinds of mixes for personal benefit. When they got to the classroom they saw, to their surprise, Toxica standing at the door checking in the students and giving them table assignments as they walked in. She smiled when she saw the gang approach, greeting them warmly. Musa decided to ask her what she was doing, which she answered readily

"I got a TA job for this class. I was always pretty good at this stuff, and the teacher offered me some credits to help her teach some of the classes. Plus, I get paid a little for doing this, which really helps. I need the cash."

While she was talking, Toxica's eyes were darting around, making sure no one was looking before she reached up and gave one of Musa's pigtails a playful tweak. Musa giggled a little, while Stella, who had moved behind Mirta, mimed throwing up until Flora put her foot down hard on top of Stella's. To her credit Stella didn't make a sound, though she did start hopping up and down on her other foot; the other girls gave her funny looks as she did her one-legged dance. Bloom broke the mood by asking Toxica where they would be sitting.

"Oh, yeah, um . . . Bloom, Musa, you two would be sitting with Tecna at table 5, though she's not going to be here today. Maybe one of you should take notes for her; Miss Gertheal isn't really the type to give you an easy first day. Flora and . . . Mirta, right? You two are going to be sitting at table 8 with Princess Pissy here. Sorry."

Stella stuck out her tongue at Toxica as she walked into the classroom; the older girl gave her a very insincere smile in return. Flora sat between Stella and Mirta at their table with the intention of keeping them from arguing. She didn't have to worry about that; as soon as the teacher stepped in and closed the door, Stella pulled out her cell phone and started texting with someone. After about ten minutes Flora couldn't take it anymore and decided to quietly talk to Stella about it.

"Put that away. This is important."

"Meh. You'll just let me copy your notes; I mean, it's the least you could do to make up for the fact that I let you be seen with me."

"Ex-_cuse _ me! I'm gonna let you fail, you stuck-up little-"

"Watch your tongue, kid. On Solaria, I could have you beaten if you call me what I think you're going to call me."

"Well I guess I'm lucky we're not _on_ Solaria, aren't I? We'll see who-"

But the rest of Flora's statement was drowned out when a rather large pair of hands came crashing down in front of them. All three girls at the table, Mirta included, jumped in their seats and looked up to see their teacher, the afore-mentioned Miss Gertheal, leaning heavily on the table looking down at them. Miss Gertheal was a large woman, both in height and apparent weight, with a face that looked downright vicious; Flora looked back down at her notebook after a moment's eye contact, while Stella squirmed visibly under her glare. The teacher grinned.

"Making trouble already, Miss Veldorian? Well, I guess you and your friends wouldn't mind coming here during your lunch break and helping me tidy up after my morning classes? No? Good. Now, try and pay attention in my class from now on, why don't you."

_(Author's note: I'm also giving some of the canon characters last names. I just never understood why they never had any on the show, and since I'm giving my characters last names, it only seemed fair that the existing characters get them too. "Veldorian" is Stella's (and Nova's, since they're sisters, plus Umbra's, since her dad and Stella's dad are brothers) last name. Others will come as the story progresses.)_

All three of them nodded, and Miss Gertheal turned away, picking up her lecture as though she hadn't stopped at all. Several other students were looking over, and Mirta hunched down, trying to hide from their stares. Flora spent the rest of the class trying not to unload a furious diatribe on Stella. Not a good way to start the year.

Darcy slammed the book shut after only a few minutes, frustrated. Like any of the other books she had pulled off the shelves of Morpheus' massive library, this one also had no information on her current powerlessness, nor anything on this "Cadraz" Virus had briefly described to her before she had sold Darcy into extraplanar slavery. She looked at the huge pile sitting on the table in front of her. She needed a better way of searching. Where was the librarian when you need-?

"Excuse me, are you done with those?"

Darcy jumped about a foot into the air as the voice came, not from either side of her, but instead from above. When she looked up she saw that she had almost hit the speaker, a long yellow head hanging under a nest of about two dozen long, thin multi-jointed arms that each ended in delicate-fingered hands; it was holding itself up on the shelves with eight hands, while the rest were hanging below, some holding books while others waited, twitching excitedly. She waved her hand, and the hands reached down, picking up the books and putting them back on the shelves where she had taken them from; Darcy hadn't gotten all that far in all this time.

"Hey, you know where a lot of the books are in this place, right?"

"I should think I do, yes. Is there any one in particular you need?"

"I'm looking for one on a guy or monster or something called Cadraz-"

Before she could go any further, the librarian creature bounded off, throwing itself down the infinite bookshelves on its palms. She soon lost sight of it as it rushed away, and it took a good twenty minutes before she could spot the creature again, flinging itself back towards her. When it returned, it was holding a well-worn leather-bound book about as thick as a dictionary reverently in four hands. Darcy gingerly took the book from its hands, reading the title (_Libris Immortus_) before opening it.

The first page was mostly empty, with only five lines of text in the center. They read, from first to last, Gods, Planeswalkers, Engines of Apocalypse, Archfiends, and Other Immortals. She sat there for a minute before, feeling stupid, announcing "Gods" in a firm voice. Immediately the pages began filling with writing, names and page numbers. She thumbed through, counting ten full pages of names; none of those names was Cadraz. She closed the book, opening it to find the five original choices facing her. She chose Engines of Apocalypse this time, and a longer list came up. She found Cadraz sandwiched between C'thulu and Edra-Nao the Living Galaxy, quickly turned to the page indicated, and began to read.

_The following is an excerpt from the Libris Immortus_

**Cadraz**

_The Armageddon Seed, Worldbreaker_

An ancient force of destruction, Cadraz is devoted to the entropic destruction of the planets and their inhabitants. A herald of all-consuming chaos, he is most often portrayed as a skeletal dragon the size of a continent. As old as most of the gods of the universe in which he exists, he is possessed with the ability to destroy worlds simply by staying on them long enough. Like many of the entities discussed in this chapter, he is limited to the universe in which he was created, barring interference from a deity or some other such cosmic force. Cadraz causes strife between his enemies, even those who have not yet realized their enmity to him; in the past this was a sign amongst good friends that he was coming, though with his demise centuries ago this sign is often ignored. A brief history is to follow . . .

Darcy paused to count how many pages were in the section on Cadraz; once she got to the eighth she decided that the general information was enough. She closed the book and stood up, only to find her hideous new master standing a few feet away. She dropped back into her seat, shuddering as he put his face right up next to hers. His nostrils flared and she noticed something black sitting inside; a second later the black thing, which appeared to be some kind of nasal tongue _(Author's Note: Got it from a Star Wars species. Morpheus is intended to be a truly monstrous being, at least physically. Greater of two evils kind of thing.)_, came slithering out to lick at the air around her face. Only the fact that she hadn't had anything to eat in a while kept Darcy from throwing up. His mass of tentacles snaked out and grabbed her around the shoulders, drawing a fresh shudder that just didn't want to stop. She didn't even feel the collar until he let her go, at which point her hands flew to the metal band now fixed around her neck. She ran her hands across it, down the chain coming down her front, all the way to the massive purple crystal hanging from the end of the chain. As soon as she touched the gem her mind opened in ways she hadn't felt in months. Morpheus grinned, exposing crooked yellow fangs in a demon's smile.

"That is called the Annulus. It enhances any sort of psionic ability, even your magic from that same element. It can teach you much, but it requires great sacrifice to master all the power it contains."

Darcy could barely hear Morpheus over her mind racing with the realization that she had gotten back far more than her normal share of magic, though she did perk up when she heard him say "power". She thought that any kind of sacrifice would be worth it if there was more power than this. To test her newfound abilities she pointed at a book sitting on the top shelf, easily thirty feet away. It slid off the shelf, floating down light as a feather. She caught it, realizing that she'd never had that kind of range or control before; most of her telekinetic powers had involved extremely short-range blasting, something she'd only learned because not everyone was susceptible to telepathic meddling. Morpheus nodded, turning to leave while he told Darcy to find something to practice on aside from his books. She stood up as well, leaving the library. She needed to test her new limits. If she even had any.

Toxica gripped the small stone firmly in her hand and focused her portal through it. She stepped through the resulting portal, and the several formed between it and her destination, and ended up in the cave that the Watchers used as a meeting place. She was not the last to arrive; Oracle, the bald witch whose powers were based around time, came out of another portal a few seconds after her. Miss Faragonda and Miss Griffin were both standing in the center, with a small holographic projector between them. As usual, Miss Faragonda took the lead.

"As we said in our last meeting, we have decided to expand the ranks of the Watchers amongst the student population. Miss Griffin, myself and the other teachers have chosen the students whose images you will see as the new members. Consider this your chance to meet them before we properly initiate them."

Before anyone could ask any questions, both teachers stepped through two different portals, back to their respective offices. There was a little talking before Arista took the initiative to turn on the projector. While she did Toxica pulled her cigarettes out of her pocket; the prestidigitation she'd performed for Dodger and Umbra was just a little trick she'd learned to show off to new students. She tried to light one, but her lighter was out of fluid. She decided that this was too important to not smoke.

"Hey Blaise, how 'bout a light?"

Red-headed Blaise pointed a finger at the tip of Toxica's cigarette and a tiny ball of fire, neither the bright orange of Bloom's Dragon's Fire nor the bruised magenta of Leah's Demon's Flame (_Author's Note: That was the name Leah's power, which is unique to her and actually has not come up yet, had in the first draft she showed up in, and I decided not to change it. There's a lot similar between Leah and Bloom, which does turn out to be significant when this all works out._), shot out and expertly ignited the tip. Arista frowned at Toxica as she inhaled the smoke.

"Come on, can't you go without? The rest of us would like to breathe freely while we're doing this, you know."

"Then breathe. The smoke's not gonna hurt you."

"You're joking, right? Secondhand smoke is just as dangerous-"

"Not mine. I'm naturally immune to the poisons in the tobacco, and my body converts all that crap to oxygen before I exhale. It might be discolored and smelly, but it's still just regular air long before it hits your lungs."

"Your magic does all that? Why didn't you ever tell us?"

"Because Miss Yaps-A-Lot over there," Toxica pointed at Pariah as she spoke, "wouldn't be able to keep that a secret, and then Faragonda would be bugging me for truth serums and mind control chemicals and all sorts of other nasty stuff that I really don't want to make."

"Don't call me that!"

"Then learn to keep a secret. Let's recall the last time I shared a secret with you. Within three days the whole school knew I was a lesbian, and I successfully traced that little leak back to you. Consequently, what I did to you after that will seem like paradise if you tell Faragonda about the full extent of my powers. Got it?"

Pariah nodded, face looking like she'd just swallowed a lemon. The projector put the first face up on the wall. The first set of faces was the group of students being brought in from Cloud Tower, after which they would see the Alfean students; every Red Fountain student was offered the chance to join in their second year, though their headmaster chose not to enter the meetings or general scheming that made up their plans. All four witches recognized Leah immediately, and had generally glowing opinions. It soon cycled through Hemlock (who Sparky decried as a psycho), Nova, Soniqua (which drew little "eeh"s from Arista and Pariah, who were huge fans), and then through the freshmen that Leah had eaten breakfast with that morning. Icy's face came up last, drawing a dismayed and angry shout from the back. Everyone else turned to look at Erika, wincing as they did.

It was generally accepted that Cloud Tower students sometimes had odd fetishes or habits, but Erika took the cake. Her face was covered in piercings, from the solid row of rings covering her lower lip to the eight studs in each ear; more were placed in each eyebrow, a few studs and rings in her nose and a hooked barb in each corner of her mouth whose only purpose was to cut into the soft tissue whenever she talked. Her arms were covered in scars and brands from self-inflicted injuries, and strange tattoos weaved their way across the unscarred parts. Her story was that her magic only worked while she was in pain, but a few students secretly thought she was just addicted to the sensation at this point. Whatever the case, Sparky stayed far away from her in case a stray lightning bolt fried her face into oblivion. Kara waved her hand, indicating that Erika explain her outburst. She did so readily.

"She's Griffin's pet! That's the real reason she got off, because Griffin gave her a full backing when she trotted out that line of crap about being brainwashed. If anyone else had tried that they'd be in jail! Oracle, Blaise, Sparky, you all know it's the truth, right?"

"I'm a little curious," Sparky said after clearing her throat with a staticy burst from her vocalizer, "why there are so many freshmen in that group. Wouldn't we be better off with more experienced students?"

"It'll probably be the same with our school. You know, get 'em young and all that. Don't look at me like that, you know it's true!"

Arista shook her head. Kara might be right, or she might just be showing her natural paranoia again; she was constantly trying to convince anyone that would listen that there was a secret society controlling the galaxy, among other ludicrous stories. She waved her hand, and the projector cycled to the students from Alfea who were being brought in. Bloom was a no-brainer, and it began going through her friends. When it got to Musa, Toxica swore at the top of her lungs, causing everyone else to look over in her direction; Toxica usually did this only to make a point with Miss Faragonda. Arista remembered a throw-away comment Pariah had made a few days ago, and it all clicked.

"She's the one, isn't she? The mystery girlfriend, right?"

"Don't any of you tell _anyone_. Nobody finds out about this, got it?"

"Congratulations, but why can't anyone know?"

"We agreed on it. I don't want her to go through the same crap I had to. You remember what I had to put up with, right?"

"Ariana isn't here anymore; I don't think you have to worry about it anymore."

Toxica waved her hand, indicating that she stood firm on keeping her relationship a secret. The projector cycled through the rest of the students from Alfea picked to join; surprisingly, while the rest of Bloom's group of friends was shown, Stella was absent from the lineup of prospective initiates, though no one brought it up in order to keep Toxica from ranting about her hatred of her younger rival again. Indeed there were freshmen in this group: Edward (who everyone there knew had been invited to Alfea for just this reason; her phenomenal abilities with technology of any kind made her invaluable), Umbra, Dodger and one other that Blaise admitted was her little sister; she seemed upset that Miss Faragonda would bring her in. When the projector finished running through they began to talk about the choices. Even though they were powerless to change them, it made them feel a lot better.

The problem, Flora decided, was that Stella was dragging them down. She and Mirta were cleaning out the lab equipment, desperately trying to make up for Stella's complete lack of interest in her task. Flora was hungry, but Mirta seemed to be fine; she had told Flora earlier in the day that her species only needed to eat about once a day, and not much at that. Stella was talking on her phone, yakking away with a girl whose name Flora recognized, though she wasn't certain if she could match the name to the face. It was Mirta who snapped first, grabbing Stella by her shirt and getting in her face.

"You are UNBELIEVABLE! I had to bust my ass to get in here, and you just drift through like you're untouchable! I can't believe I ever thought you were cool. How is it you haven't been held back? Oh, wait, you were! Aren't you even afraid it'll happen again?"

As Mirta went on, Flora noticed sparkling motes forming around her. They looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place where she'd seen them before. She reached out and tapped Mirta on the shoulder, intending to let her know that something was happening. Mirta whirled around when Flora touched her, shouting "WHAT!" as a flash of light erupted around her.

When Flora's eyes cleared, she saw that Mirta had _changed_. In place of the grungy outfit she normally wore, she was in a pink two-piece outfit with blue boots and gloves. The thing that really stood out was the pair of wings growing out of her back. This wasn't a witch's combat outfit; it was a full-blown fairy transformation. But that was impossible, wasn't it? Wasn't Mirta a witch? Mirta looked down at herself and squawked, an awkward noise drawn out by her surprise.

(_Author's Note: Once my original idea for a Winx Club story, which featured Mirta as a half-demon whose magic worked differently than either witch or fairy, was vetoed by my girlfriend, I had the idea to make Mirta a fairy. This was back when Season One had just wrapped up here in the States. I ended up using her canon fairy form because mine was way too kinky. I had demons on the brain, and she ended up with a dominatrix getup and bat wings that was supposed to tie into her Talisman, which at the time was a bracelet that turned into a whip. That all has changed, but I felt you should know that I had the idea first._)

"What the-what happened? How in God's name . . . I can't do this!"

"We need to go to Miss Faragonda. Um, Miss Gertheal? We kind of need to see the headmistress."

Miss Gertheal, who had been working up a lesson plan in her office, came out and saw Mirta transformed; like the other teachers, she knew that Mirta was supposed to be a witch. She seemed a little confused, but nodded.

"Very well. Miss Artaund (_Author's Note: Flora_), you take Miss Payne (_Author's Note: Mirta_) to Miss Faragonda immediately. As for _you_, Miss Veldorian," for Stella had tried to sneak out with Flora and Mirta, "you might want to pick up the pace if you want to get to your next class on time."

If she wasn't so worried about Mirta, Flora would have burst out laughing at the look on Stella's face when Miss Gertheal threatened to hold her out of her other classes. The two of them hurried through the halls, which were vacant due to it being the lunch hour. When they got to Miss Faragonda's office the doors were closed, though they could hear people talking on the other side. Flora knocked on the door hesitantly, and the door opened slightly, letting her hear a little of what was being said.

"-e girl is too valuable to either side. We almost lost her once, and I do not intend to lose her again." That was Miss Faragonda talking.

"You don't have to remind _me_ how important she is. I had to destroy one of my best agents to keep her safe. I just hope your insider can keep her safe from the other side." It was a man talking, and not one Flora had heard before, with a voice smooth as silk and at the same time harder than steel. It was a dangerous voice.

"Believe me Casca, she is more than adequate. A little power-hungry, but she can remain very task-oriented when presented with the proper motivation. Now if you don't mind, there are a few students waiting for me outside."

Flora scooted back from the door. A second after she had gotten to the other side of the room the doors opened. A large, handsome man with no shirt and a pair of mirrored swords sheathed at his waist walked out. He stole a glance at Flora and Mirta; both of them saw something _wrong_ about his eyes, like black lights dancing behind the pupils. In the next instant that feeling was gone, and so was the man. They waited until Miss Faragonda called them in before entering.

"Well now, what brings you two to my office? You haven't gotten into any _more_ trouble since this morning, have you?"

"Well, you see, it-"

But the easiest way to break the news was to let Miss Faragonda see Mirta, who was still in her new transformed state. To her credit Miss Faragonda didn't blink or show any sign of surprise. She just looked Mirta over coolly; after a minute, Mirta began to squirm under her gaze.

"Very interesting, if I do say so myself. Tell me, is this your first transformation, or did you know about this before coming here this year?"

"It just happened today. It just feels so . . . wrong. I shouldn't have wings, I'm a witch!"

"Apparently not, or at least not anymore. We're going to have to rework some of your class schedules; if this is a permanent change, you're going to have to learn how to control your changes. It was an emotional incident that brought this on, yes?"

"Um . . . yeah, I was pretty upset. Is there any way I can, you know, change back? I feel stupid like this."

Miss Faragonda walked Mirta through a simple mental process through which she could regain her normal form, returning her to her regular clothes. She left to see the new scheduling head to get her classes redone, leaving Flora alone with Miss Faragonda, who seemed not to notice her for a moment. She cleared her throat, preparing to ask who the man with the dangerous eyes was, but Miss Faragonda waved her hand, dismissing Flora without a word. Without an opening, Flora had no choice but to go to her next class, still very confused.

_They're coming through the walls, through the skin. You don't know who they are they could be your friends they could be your family they could be you and you wouldn't know you don't know you can't know wake up wake up wakeupwakeupWAKE-_

Hemlock half-felt something grab her shoulder and immediately threw whatever it was across the room, pinning it to the wall with her arm while holding a curved knife to its throat with the other. Still partially asleep she whispered "What are you?" with an overdose of menace.

"It's me, Leah! Come on, let me go, will you?"

Hemlock blinked the sleep out of her eyes and found herself holding someone that looked like Leah to the wall. Life living with the Nekote taught you not to trust your eyes. It was a _very_ good likeness; they'd even manage to capture the non-color of her eyes, which had supposedly never colored after birth, perfectly. That could easily be faked with contact lenses, something they'd learned to do. How to be sure, then, that it wasn't a cat-man in disguise?

"How do I know you're really her?"

"Seriously? Fine, my name is Leah Phelps, age 16 from Earth (_Author's Note: I don't remember any episode saying how old everyone is; I always assumed they followed age conventions for American high schools, ie. freshmen start at 14, sophomores at 15, juniors at 16 and so on. Just felt the need to clarify that._). I think you're a paranoid psycho, but I still hang around you because you need someone with a sense of humor around. We started hanging out after I beat up Vish for using her magic to make you piss your pants-"

Hemlock released Leah; she had worked very hard to keep knowledge of that little incident private, and only Leah, Icy, Darcy, Vish, Blee'Gax and herself knew exactly why that fight had been started in the first place. It also wasn't something an infiltrator would find important, so it was the perfect tidbit to convince Hemlock that Leah was who she appeared to be. She shook the last vestiges of sleep from her brain and found herself wondering why Leah was up so late, especially since she'd been up all night last night. Leah grimaced when she asked.

"Really bad dream. I honestly don't think I can go back to sleep tonight after that. Same with you?"

Before Hemlock could respond someone started shrieking in Nova and Soniqua's room. Leah was out the door in a heartbeat, and Hemlock caught up in time to find her clutching Soniqua, making reassuring noises while the younger girl sobbed in her arms. Another nightmare? It couldn't be coincidence. Just as Hemlock thought that, Nova shot upright with a "whuh" noise on her lips. Leah got up to check on Icy and Buzzkill, but the two of them were standing in the doorway, looking in at the other four girls. It was Icy who said it first.

"Did we all have nightmares? Is that even possible?"

Leah escorted the rest of the group into their common room, where they all say down on different pieces of furniture, dividing themselves up between the two couches and two chairs sitting in the center of the room. They sat in silence for a minute before Leah decided to break the ice; if she was good at nothing else, she was at least good at starting a conversation.

"So, all of us had bad dreams, right? I'm assuming that's why we're all awake at-" she checked the time on her phone, which she always kept on, "2:38 in the morning. Am I right?"

Slowly, everyone nodded or gave some kind of assenting motion. Hemlock shook her head again, causing her currently unbraided green hair to waver around from side to side.

"This is ridiculous. We all had the same kind of dream at the same time? That's impossible!"

"How do you know we all had the same dream? Me and Icy could have just been woken up by all the noise you guys were making, you know."

Hemlock fixed Buzzkill with such a fiercely evil glare that it made her shrink down into her side of the couch. Before she could fire off a scathing retort, the group was interrupted by a tapping at one of the windows. Leah stood up and opened it to admit her familiar, the talking white bat Foxglove. The little creature drifted onto Leah's shoulder, chowing down on a mouthful of bugs while looking at the assembled group. When she finally swallowed it, she decided to sate her curiosity.

"So, some kind of slumber party? Or did Leah spike everyone's drinks with caffeine pills again?"

"Bad dre-spike our drinks with _what_?"

"Oh let's not talk about that, please. Besides, I would never do that to people I like. Back on topic, why don't we share what exactly we were dreaming? It might help us figure out anything they have in common."

"Only if you go first. I really don't want to find out I'm the only one who saw something terrible."

"Fine." Leah took a moment to compose herself. "In my dream I'm six, back at the orphanage. There's a new family coming today, and I'm getting ready to meet them, when little Billy Fergus comes into my room and sucker-punches me in the gut. By the time I can breathe again he's stuffed me in my closet and, I don't know, propped a chair under the knob or something, because I can turn the knob but the door won't open. I'm hammering on the door, screaming at the top of my lungs but no one's coming to let me out. Some part of me just _knows_ that this family is the one that's going to take me home, but they can-" she stopped, her voice catching in her throat, "they can't find me if I'm stuck in there. That's when I woke up."

Whatever Leah was expecting everyone to say, it clearly wasn't "Wait, you're adopted?" coming from Hemlock's mouth. She looked over at her, clearly upset.

"_That's_ what you get out of that? Of course I'm adopted! Haven't you ever looked at the pictures on my dresser? Aside from me, my whole family's black! Didn't you ever wonder why every picture has me with a bunch of black people?"

"Like I have the time to look at your stupid pictures. Anyway, who's next?"

"I'll go." Nova said, sitting up a little straighter. "It's a horrible memory I just can't shake. It goes back to before I went to live with my dad on Solaria. My mom was the shaman of this small tribe on a backwater planet, so I had some knowledge of magic. But one day, I was showing off with my friends, and the full brunt of my powers hit me right then and there. The little sun flash I was trying to make turned into a full-blown solar flare that cooked my friends alive in an instant. Except this time they were still standing, burnt almost to cinders, screaming all kinds of horrible things at me. That was how my dad found me, crying and with the Devil Eyes tattooed on my face; by tracing all that power. He makes me wear this," she pointed at the gold circlet perched on her brow, "at all times to keep my magic from exploding out like that again."

"Yikes. So, it's not just some stupid princess thing?"

"If that's a damper . . . how much of a reduction in power are we talking here? Ten, maybe twenty percent?"

"Eighty percent, and even with that much taken away I'm one of the most powerful casters ever to come to either school."

Icy let out a low whistle. She'd thought she was strong, but Nova outstripped her even with the damper. Actually, she was worlds away more powerful than anyone else Icy had ever met at Cloud Tower in her four full years prior to this. If Darcy had found out about her, there was little doubt in her mind that Nova would have been the target of her aggression last year instead of Bloom. It was a scary thought. After a moment she realized that no one else was taking the initiative, so she decided to go next.

"I . . . I see my dad. He used to . . . to beat the hell out of me when I was really young, and it's usually just a blur of different times he hit me. Tonight, though . . . it was the worst he'd ever done to me, the reason Mom divorced him. I ended up with these little scars on the side of my face, two black eyes and a broken arm, among other things. I hadn't had any dreams like that for a while before last night, but this one was the worst."

Everyone but Hemlock made sympathetic noises; the green-haired witch simply couldn't pretend to care about something like that. After a minute she couldn't take it anymore.

"All right, enough with the pity party! Who's next?"

"Well, someone's eager to share. Go on, let's have it." Foxglove seemed to smile as she said this, even though it was impossible.

"What? No! I'm not going next just because some winged rat tells me to!"

But no one had her back on this. Scowling at each of her roommates in turn, she started talking.

"I'm at home, and everything seems okay. I'm eating breakfast with my sisters and my parents walk into the room. Except they're not my parents. It's not until my mom grows claws and slices open my little sister Akiko's face that I can see their eyes aren't the right color. They're gold; Nekote can't change the color of their eyes when they turn into humans. Yukita goes for one of her throwing knives, and my not-dad does this tumbling roll and cuts up her arm before he gets her in the throat. I get outside and the whole village is being slaughtered by these furry monsters. And then . . . I see _her_. Hirine, their master, and she's coming for me. I'm looking around for something to fight with, one of them grabs me and I woke up."

"I think that was me that woke you up, just for the record."

Everyone else was staring at Hemlock, horrified by her description of her nightmare. It just seemed so _graphic_, so frightening, that none of them could quite wrap their heads around it. Buzzkill cleared her throat, indicating that she wanted to take her turn. The group turned to look at her while she spoke.

"It's both real and fake, this one. Back when I was eight, a rusting plague swept through the area. It's worse than it sounds; since my people are made of organic metal, rusting is a really painful and disfiguring way to die. I'm in the palace and all of a sudden-"

"Palace? What, are you some kind of servant or something?"

"Let her tell her story. You can ask your question after that."

"Thank you. Anyway, all of a sudden I hear fighting in the hallways near my chambers. It gets louder and louder, and suddenly a pair of half-rusted-" she said something in her own language, a word they couldn't hear every part of due to her language's multi-frequency vocal range; everyone assumed it was the species name, "come through the door. One of them is missing his right arms, and the other has her face rotting away. One of the guards comes up behind them and fires his weapon, and bits of infectious rust fly everywhere. After a minute, I realize that I can _taste_ it, that it's gotten into my system and I'm sick just like them, that I'm going to die a drawn-out and painful death. I can feel it taking hold, and that's when I heard someone screaming. That's what woke me up."

"So . . . palace, seriously? What, are you some kind of maid or something?"

"I don't really want to talk about it-"

"Uh-uh, you brought it up, so let's hear it. You're either a servant or royalty, and it can't be the second. The cultural website said something about arm number or something . . . actually, could you explain that real quick? It was kind of confusing, to be honest."

"It's simple," Buzzkill said, rolling her eyes as she explained. "We all have at least four arms. Four arms is the most common setup. Those with five arms are always spellcasters, usually witches. People with six arms design our technology; they're geniuses compared to other members of the species. If you have seven arms, you're drafted into the Imperial Guard and become a warrior; they're the next common, actually. The leader of the Empire, who's usually female, and their child have eight arms usually."

"Usually? But . . . you're a witch, so that means you have the wrong number of arms, right?"

"Yes, but not for that reason. See, the royal line always has magic in its veins. I'm kind of the heir to the Empire. I figured I'd get eaten alive if everyone found out I was a princess, so I-"

Leah snorted with laughter, making Buzzkill flush to a darker green and bark "What's so funny!" Leah tried to explain without cracking up again.

"It's just . . . Nova's a princess, and no one messes with her!"

"She's an Amazon! The first time I saw her, with her size and the black stuff around her eyes, I thought she was going to beat me up!"

"Fair point, I guess. No one would care, I don't think, but if you want to keep it to yourself I can't stop you. All right, who's left . . . Soniqua?"

Soniqua shook her head, shaking a little all over while she did so. Whatever she had seen, it had scared her on a level that no one else had gotten to. Nova leaned over, putting her arm around the other girl's shoulder.

"It's all right. Whatever you saw, it can't hurt you. It must have already happ-"

"It didn't! I saw some kind of monster, all tentacles and legs . . . he was killing you, all of you! I saw him get through all of you, even Icy's new friends, and when he was pulling out Sissy's guts he looked me in the eyes and said 'Talk and this really happens'. I believe him, he's going to kill all of you now!"

She dissolved into tears at that point, and Nova wrapped both of her arms around her to try and comfort her. Everyone was sitting still for a moment, letting the horror of Soniqua's vision sink in. Leah broke the stillness first, turning on the television and picking up one of her game controllers. Hemlock shot her such a dirty look as had never before been seen by any of the girls before, one that made even Buzzkill cringe.

"You're going to play games! After what we all just heard, you can just disconnect like that?"

"It's not like I'm going back to bed after that. Besides, I can still contribute to whatever plans we make while playing; I'm just that good."

"Maybe we should, I don't know, go to the library during a free period and try to find out how something like this works."

"We might as well try and see what the thing Soniqua saw was. Whoever our dream-crossing enemy is, I think he let too much show with her. Who's with me on that?" Leah managed to say all of this while working the menus of her game. Slowly everyone agreed before trying to find something to do until breakfast.

Three periods later, Leah and her friends met in the library. It had not been a pleasant morning; Leah had dozed off in the middle of her Advanced Demonology class, waking up with a shriek when she saw Freddy Krueger disembowel her brother Marcus before her eyes, and had almost gotten detention for disrupting the class. When she got there she found Alice, Josie and Sissy waiting with the rest of them. Alice was yawning constantly, and Sissy had dark circles under her eyes; when asked, they both admitted to having horrible nightmares the night before. They entered the library as a group, hoping to find an answer early.

Seemingly drawn to the large group of impressionable girls, Cauchemar quickly found them wandering his domain. Everyone had a different reaction; some, like Sissy, stared transfixed by the personal horror in front of them, while others gagged, swallowed, shuddered or teared up. Leah turned in a half-circle, so horrified and disgusted by what she saw that she simply could not face it. Hemlock managed to put up a brave front, staring down the image of a bloodstained Nekote lord in full battle regalia to ask it a question.

"We need to find any books on dream manipulation. Any ideas where to start?"

"Hmph. I just can't seem to ruffle your feathers, can I? Send the girl from Earth up here; I might be willing to answer her questions if she looks at me properly."

"Just answer the question, will you? We don't have much time-"

"You need to learn some patience, little girl. I don't think I'm going to help you now."

Icy all of a sudden realized that forceful arguments weren't going to get them anywhere. Playing on Cauchemar's pride, or suggesting someone else was having fun with their fears, would be the perfect way to manipulate him into helping them. She blinked her eyes a few times to get the tears flowing before walking up to him, trying to put the right stutter of fear in her voice.

"It's just . . . s-something's making us so sc-scared. It's in our dreams, and we don't want to b-be scared like that anymore."

The effect was immediate. No matter what he looked like, everyone who was looking at Cauchemar saw his face turn dark and wrathful. The expression made them all glad he had no physical form anymore.

"This outrage cannot stand! You are _my_ puppets, and no one is going to take you away from me! Follow me if you want to be rid of this imposter."

Icy winked at her companions as Cauchemar stalked through the shelves, though she managed to put on the mask of a scared little girl before he turned around. This part of the library was abandoned, and sounds from the other areas were muffled. He spread his illusory appendages around, indicating the shelves.

"This is where we keep the books on dream manipulation, among other advanced topics. Whoever this creep is, give him Hell for me."

With that he left, drifting through the bookshelves to leave the girls in peace. Josie tapped Leah on the sleeve to let her know Cauchemar was gone, at which point all of them dove into the books, eager to find answers. It took more than an hour to find anything; most of them had abandoned the idea of going to class before they found an answer to their questions. Hemlock slapped her hand down on the page she was reading, drawing everyone's attention.

"Here! It says something about another world, the Dream of Darkness, where you can-"

"That's a layer of the Abyss. You fall asleep when you get there, and the whole place takes over what your usual dream would be. Miss Totchgo talked about the Prince who rules it, Gaturi Regath, but he looks like a balrog made out of black flames or a handsome man with black skin, depending on whether or not you're friendly. Sorry."

Hemlock shook her head to clear the cobwebs from it, rereading the page until she found the relevant information. Leah looked up from her book when Icy gave the little lecture.

"She hasn't taught _us_ about him yet. We're still going through the New Princes, and that's getting boring. Honestly, who cares about Venekath and the Queen of Cinders? They sound like nobodies."

"She'll get to him eventually, don't worry. How long have we been here anyway? I think we might be late for our next classes."

"Forget about that; I want to be able to sleep in class again before I go back. Hello, what's this? _Libris Immortus_, huh? I wonder if our monster friend's in here."

Leah opened the book, looking at the five choices written on the front page. She shook her head, saying aloud "This doesn't help. Can't we search based on what he does?" The ink faded from the pages when she said that, reforming into a question: What Does He Do? She waved her hand, drawing everyone to her find.

"Okay, how do I put this? He's in our heads, playing around with our dreams and turning them into horror shows."

The writing on the page faded, replacing itself with a list of three names: Morpheus (God), The Lord of Nightmares, and Morpheus (Planeswalker). Leah, after some discussion, said "The Lord of Nightmares" in a firm voice. Josie gasped as the horrific creature Soniqua had described formed itself in ink on the page; Soniqua herself bit her lip to keep the scream in. Leah began reading the text aloud to everyone.

_The following is an excerpt from the Libris Immortus_

**The Lord of Nightmares**

_Master of Fearful Slumber, Boogieman_

Master of the dark part of the Dreaming, the Lord of Nightmares was a fearsome creature devoted to spreading terror through the minds of those who sleep. Once the ruler of the evil inhabitants of the Dreaming, he was slain recently; none of his subordinates have taken his place. The epic battle that cost him his life claimed the body of his opponent, the planeswalker Morpheus, about twenty years ago. Until that time . . .

"Dammit, that was our best shot! If he's dead, how are we supposed to stop him?"

Leah was upset, and she wasn't the only one. Most of them had shown some sign of despair when it said the Lord of Nightmares was dead; after all, how do you kill a dead man? Josie scanned the text over Leah's shoulder, remembering the choices offered when they had described the powers of their opponent. She said, "Try the other guy, that 'planeswalker' Morpheus." Leah announced the name, feeling even more stupid than ever. The picture was of a rotting man holding a large gemstone, though the black and white picture left them unclear as to what kind of stone it was. Leah began to read.

"' . . . his phylactery was warped by the Lord of Nightmares' dying curse, forcing him to hide it in the flesh of his dead foe in order to survive . . . ' that's it! This Morpheus dude is using the Lord of Nightmares' powers to mess with us! But why us, what did we do to him?"

"That's not as important right now. For now we need to worry about how we stop him. Is there some kind of technique for dream-fighting? And what's a 'planeswalker' anyway?"

"I might be able to answer that." Leah had a superior look on her face. "A planeswalker is a being that can cross the dimensions. They have powerful magic, can change their form to anything they can think of, and are practically immortal."

"Knowing about a character in a _stupid_ game doesn't make you an expert, you little geek! I've read some of those websites over your shoulder, I know that's where you know the word from."

"You can't be bothered to know about my family, but you are perfectly capable of learning about my interests so you can mock me?"

"Both of you, stop fighting! God, why you two stick together is beyond me. Does anyone know what a planeswalker really is?"

"Actually, Leah's right." Josie held up her hand to get everyone's attention. "I read about them in a book on my homeworld. They're pretty much unkillable unless you've got some really powerful juju on your side."

Hemlock's mouth was hanging wide open; she'd never expected Leah to be right about anything important. But no one was paying attention to her; they were all clustered around Josie, whose bookish smarts might help them win this fight.

"Think hard on this: have you ever read _anything_ on fighting in a dream-world? And not just one-on-one; we need to work together on this."

"Well, there is a ritual I can think of that'll put us all in the same dream. That might help, right?"

"Yeah. For now, let's get to class. We can meet up in our room after dinner."

It was after dinner, and the group of witches had converged in Leah's room as planned, though she herself wasn't there. Josie was in the common room with the rest of them, drawing a large, intricate circle on the floor, from which the furniture had been moved to make room. She was almost done when Leah walked in, carrying a large jug of white liquid. She grinned when asked what it was.

"This is what's going to help us stay in the dream. We all ready?"

Josie nodded as she finished the last line of the circle's interior. Everyone but Buzzkill, who had been chosen to stay awake and make sure they didn't die in the dream, stepped inside, drinking what turned out to be warm milk out of the jug. Leah took it away from each person after they had taken little more than a sip. About a minute after taking that sip, each and every one of them was fast asleep in the circle.

Hemlock sat up. She was lying on the ground, curled up the way she did when she slept. But she wasn't in her bed. She was – where was she? The ground was spongy, dipping when she leaned on her elbow to push herself up. She looked up at the sky; it was like an oil slick, shifting colors at random. How did she get here? What was going-?

"Hemlock, over here!"

Josie was standing on a street at the edge of a city on the horizon, but Hemlock could hear her perfectly. She stood up and walked towards her, finding herself next to the younger girl far sooner than she would have expected. The rest of the group was nearby, most looking around at their new surroundings in confusion or wonder. Hemlock shuddered as something weird, something completely alien and _wrong_, soared overhead, flapping three pairs of wings as it drifted through the rainbow-colored sky.

"Where _are_ we? This place is so wrong on so many levels it's not even funny."

"This is a combination of our subconsciouses. We're so different from each other that it comes out kind of trippy, but it seems safe."

"That's what you think, child. Couldn't you little brats have waited until later?

All of the girls turned as one to see Morpheus, in the Lord of Nightmares' body, standing behind them. Leah turned the full way around, feeling pretty cocky.

"We're not afraid of you, not now that we know what you are."

"Really? Your friends seem pretty terrified. Why not you?"

"Because I know you're gonna BURN!"

Leah threw her hands forward, fully expecting her Demon's Flame to come shooting out of her hands to scorch Morpheus in the face. The problem was, nothing happened. She flicked her hands again, hoping for something spectacular. The end result was the same as her first attempt; that is to say, a whole lot of nothing happened. She got a desperate grin on her face, giving a little chuckle with no humor but plenty of "God save us all" behind it. Then she shouted "RUN!" and all of them took off, trying to lose him in the dream-city they were in.

Somehow managing to stick together as a group in their panicked flight, the girls found an alley where they could catch their breath. Leah came up last, skidding around the corner while Icy made sure Morpheus hadn't followed them. Hemlock took this time to critique Leah's wardrobe.

"See, that's why you shouldn't wear a long skirt. What happens when you have to run?"

"Not the time. Why can't we use our magic?"

"What do you mean, we can't use our magic?"

Just as with Morpheus, all heads turned as one to see Buzzkill standing in the alley, looking a little confused. Leah took this moment to relieve the panic and stress she was feeling by unloading on her.

"What the hell are you doing here? You were supposed to wake _us_ up if it looked like we were getting into trouble!"

"I got thirsty, so I drank that stuff you had everyone else drink. I didn't think it would make me sleepy; it's harder for stuff like that to get into our systems-"

"You drank . . . how much of it did you drink?"

"All of it. Why, is that bad?"

"Dude, you drank all of it!" Leah pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. "I put, like, a dozen sleeping pills in that stuff! Oh God, we are so dead."

No one really wanted to interrupt Leah, even those who were offended by her drugging them. She drew in a few deep breaths to calm herself before clapping her hands, possessed of energy again. It took one look in her eyes to realize that, despite her appearance, she still felt they were all going to die. She looked out the mouth of the alley and saw, not Morpheus, but a man walking down the road towards them.

When he got closer, everyone realized that he was no ordinary man. One of his hands was made of leather, with the fingers tipped with long metal claws. The fur on his chest was striped horizontally, and his face looked like a terrible skin graft had been applied to it. Leah had a name for him, but the man-thing chuckled before she could say it.

"I suppose I do look like him, don't I? My, aren't we jumpy then?" he asked in a rough voice, for Leah had gasped at his response to her thought. "We don't have much time before the imposter finds you, so if you have any questions, now is the time to ask."

"I guess what we want to know," Icy said, becoming the face of the group while Leah tried to figure out how this creature knew her thoughts, "is why we can't use our magic. Is it impossible, or-?"

"You must _believe_ that you have the power to fight if you wish to fight. This is how Morpheus wins: He has you believing yourselves helpless, impotent. Your magic will come to you if you truly believe it will help you."

"Thanks, but . . . why are you helping us?"

The dream-man grimaced.

"That imposter destroyed my master and uses his body to cloak his own failing flesh. We nightmares are not powerful enough to fight him, and the dreamlings would have us destroyed along with him. Kill him and set us free. We won't forget it."

He turned and walked away, fading into oblivion before anyone thought to ask how exactly he had gotten into their shared dream. Icy closed her eyes. She _could_ beat Morpheus. He _wasn't_ invincible, just a power-mad monster. She _could_ use her magic. She opened her eyes and saw that she was wearing her combat outfit, the dark-blue thing Darcy had changed hers to after conquering her mind. Everyone was focusing, and as she watched they began to transform as well.

It amazed her how different everyone's outfits were. Leah's was a shoulderless jumpsuit the same color of her Demon's Flame, with a cape flowing from the back to attach to her wrists at the corners. Hemlock was wearing a woman's _gi_, a fighting outfit from her homeworld, with her customary sword strapped to her side. Nova's fur bikini (that was the only word she could think of to describe it) was nothing like the fur-lined, custom-fitted skinsuit Soniqua had on. Josie had shifted to a purple robe with wide sleeves; her staff was clutched firmly in her hand. The other three were wearing armor; Buzzkill's was made of strips of metal interlocking to cover her entire body, while Sissy's and Alice's were more traditional and left their heads uncovered. Sissy's was covered in bone-shaped bronze, and the left gauntlet had two-foot-long talons sprouting from the fingers. Alice's was black with highlights of purple, yellow and red; gems of all colors studded her knuckles, palms and elbows. It was just as well that they had figured out how to use their magic, because it was at the moment that Morpheus found them. He sneered, which actually made his face easier to look at.

"Interesting but futile. Even with your pathetic powers you are no match for the Scourge of Marakshesh, the Walker of Worlds Morpheus. I am-!"

But what he was would have to wait, since everyone launched their most powerful magic at him at once. The onslaught of conflicting magic, from Sissy's negative energy to Josie's acid rainstorm, pummeled him from all sides. Leah cheered as he disappeared underneath their magical assault, though that cheer died when the energy patterns cleared to reveal him still hovering there, relatively unharmed.

"Come on! How are we supposed to beat him when our best spells don't do squat to him?"

"I have an idea, but all of you have to trust me on this, got it?"

Leah, who was standing in the back, started walking towards the front and Morpheus as though in a trance. She touched each of her companions as she advanced, creating tiny threads of energy connecting them to her. When she got to the front she pulled on those threads, pulling everyone's power into herself. She ignited immediately, covered in Demon's Flame, while everyone else felt their magic disappear. Leah spread her arms as she spoke to Morpheus, and everyone heard her voice echo, like it was coming from somewhere deep within her.

"You reign of terror ends now. _I_ have the power now, and soon I will have your life as well!"

A lance of bruise-colored flame drilled its point into Morpheus' chest near the shoulder joint holding his tentacles to his body; they dropped limp as the lance drove deeper into his body. He scrunched his face in a rictus of concentration, dispelling the flames before they could completely remove his shoulder. He didn't look confident anymore; in fact, he looked terrified now that he'd gotten hurt.

"Impossible . . . you are like me! It is the only way! Who are you? Are you the Salamander King (_Author's Note: Another planeswalker that hates Morpheus. Not important, but I needed a name._), come to destroy me? How did you cloak your power in our last encounter? It matters not, for I shall prevail!"

Morpheus' magic was more subtle, aiming to drive Leah mad and make her attack her friends. She deflected the spell with ease, though it wasn't really her in there; the mind controlling all this power was inscrutable to any mortal that looked into it, even the one that was supposed to be in charge. Her cage of fire wrapped around his body, hemming him in until he had nowhere to run. He flicked his fingers on his humanoid arm as the flames took to his body like it was paper, shooting a tiny spark of light that struck Leah between the eyes. His ravaged body, as well as Leah, disappeared at once, leaving the rest of the group standing around wondering what had happened. Josie decided to ask the question everyone else was thinking.

"Could she always do _that_? I mean, she just took our magic like it was nothing. I thought you had to be willing to let someone else use your magic."

"You do, but this . . . this was something no one's ever seen before. She wasn't using our magic, just our raw power to fuel her own spells. I've never known her to do that before, and I'm pretty sure none of you have either."

"If she doesn't remember, we can't tell her she can do this. Hear me out," Hemlock said, holding up her arms to ward off any comments, "if Leah knows she can do this, you know she'll do it again. What if it becomes permanent after a while? We can all feel our power coming back now, but if it doesn't happen once, we're useless."

"That's if she's alive. What if Morpheus ki-"

Soniqua disappeared partway through her question. Sissy and Alice vanished too, and they started realizing that they were waking up. Hemlock disappeared to find herself staring at Leah, who looked excited.

"Did we do it? Did we win?"

"Wha . . . yeah, we did it. Don't you remember?"

"No, the pills must not have gotten me the same way they did to you. I just woke up and all you guys were lying here. Man I wish I could have been there!"

Leah didn't notice the collective glance passed between everyone that was awake; she was too busy shaking Buzzkill to try and wake her up. The green alien girl slowly woke up, though it was more by the knock at the door than Leah's determined attempts to wake her. She shook the last vestiges of sleep from her head as Icy opened the door. Standing on the other side were Blaise and Erika, who looked in to see everyone sitting in the common room. They beckoned for the group to follow them; they all did so wordlessly, compelled by something they couldn't understand. Erika looked at Blaise, who had a knack for reading the piercing-queen's facial cues. She was happy this was going as easy as it had. If only the rest of it could go this way.

Darcy was glad to be out of Morpheus' grip. Virus had shown up shortly after she'd found Morpheus' roasted body sitting in a room he had forbidden her to enter, clutching a large gem. She'd smashed it after determining that it had no power she could exploit and began wandering the palace to find something to do. She'd literally run into Virus stalking the halls with the _Libris Immortus_ tucked under her arm, and the two of them had left. In addition to Tenebra and the Dragon Knight (who preferred to wear his helmet), there were new faces in the temple; one, the legendary Hirine, was a woman with long black hair who moved like smoke when she walked, while the other one, a red-skinned man with black hair, horns and a blood-crusted straight razor tucked into his belt, was introduced as Hellrazor, the Prince of Blades. They were watching the last person in the room, whom Darcy recognized immediately as Stella. Virus grinned when she saw her, grabbing her by the chin and staring deep into Stella's brown eyes with her one green one and the red cybernetic one.

"He was right; we do have an insider at Alfea. But something's not right. Could it be . . . oh my, but that's powerful. Someone was a bad girl, wasn't she? Darcy, I want you to absorb the personality you sense when first reading this girl's mind. And _don't_ just wipe her brain; she's a friend now, and we will treat her as such."

Darcy considered disobeying; Stella had caused her so much trouble last year, and it would be easy to claim underestimating her new power levels while trying to "fix" her. One look at Virus and her death's-head half-grin changed her mind. She placed her hands on either side of Stella's head, feeling her mind open up in front of her. There were . . . _two_ minds? One was out in front, aggressively pushing the other one down; the second mind, which she suspected was the true Stella, was putting up a good but ultimately losing fight. She let out a deep breath, focused, and drew the first mind into her own. For a second she felt giggly and bubbly, but she forced that as deeply into her subconscious as she could, burying it utterly. She was breathing a little hard when a pair of hands grabbed her wrists and pulled her own hands away from Stella's head. Stella herself looked different; her perpetually peppy grin had shifted into a grim, humorless smile. Even her eyes looked harder, like someone had sucked all the happiness from her soul.

"Oh, finally! God, I thought I'd never get rid of that stupid curse!"

She backhanded Darcy, who was still slumped on the ground, so that she fell on her face; Hellrazor chuckled a little as Darcy glared impotently up at her rival. Virus peaked her fingers in front of her face, calmly addressing Stella; her voice sent a tremor up Stella's spine.

"Let's not have any of that. Just as Darcy kept herself from doing your mind a serious mischief, you will restrain yourself from abusing her. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, but . . . who are you, exactly? I was expecting Lord Margath to be waiting for me-"

"I killed Margath and took his place. My name is Virus, and I am in charge of the Dragon Cult now. Of course, you will have to prove yourself to us. Show us your mark, now."

Stella revealed a symbol hidden on her body (_Author's Note: You'll find out where it is later, don't worry._), an Ourboros-like dragon curled in a circle around itself. Darcy looked at her palm, where the same symbol had been magically etched into her skin during her initiation. _Stella_ was one of the bad guys? This made no sense at all, but Virus seemed satisfied.

"Very good. Now, what has brought you to us now? Surely you could have been useful before now, so why wait?"

"The Watchers are recruiting new members as we speak. I had reason to assume they would try and capture me at the same time, so I rebelled against my false programming and came here. It would be better not to be revealed to the group at large so soon."

Virus nodded, though Darcy took note that Stella had said "group at large". Someone at Alfea, someone within the Watchers, knew Stella's true allegiance. Obviously the leadership didn't control Alfea, or didn't believe the accusation. Darcy imagined that whoever this was would hate the Watchers for not acting on her information, as well as Stella herself for slipping out of trouble. She would have to investigate on her own, in case Stella got to be a problem. She tuned out the rest of Virus' conversation with Stella. She had her own webs to spin, and these plans would take time. But with all the power she had now, she had nothing but time.


	5. Sick In The Head

I do not own Winx Club. I do own a staggering amount of characters that I made up for this project. If you want to borrow any of them, just ask, for I am a benevolent being.

This project picks up after Season One. Haven't seen any other episodes, and I probably couldn't get it to work right otherwise.

To answer your first three questions: Yes, I am a guy. No, I'm not gay. Yes, really.

**Year of the Dragon**

Sick In the Head

"They've done it. A whole flock of new soldiers for Miss Faragonda's army, and they're all children. Disgraceful."

"You realize, Master Casca, that _I'm_ a kid too. We're not all as weak as you think."

Casca stood nowhere in reality but instead within the dream-menagerie Lucy had created. He looked down from the top of the tower, staring out at the fields of horrors that lived there. Lucy, like him or any other Madwalker, could call the madness-spawned creatures lurking in her head forth from a medium of her choosing. (_Author's Note: Wizards of the Coast called these characters "dementists". I figured, since I didn't know what Lucy's magic was centered around when I wrote this chapter, I could give her whatever the Hell kind of powers I wanted and it wouldn't matter._) He watched as one particularly determined monster, this one far more human than he would have liked any of his followers to create, made a third attempt to scale the walls of Lucy's dream-fortress, her safe haven from the madness that both fueled her powers and threatened to destroy her at the same time. It managed to get about an eighth of the way up before another monster, a mechanical giant he'd watched Lucy draw blueprints for before she'd finally created it, grabbed it by the leg and tossed it to the ground. This was not done out of affection for its creator; the nightmare monsters fought each other at the whims of said creators, the best way they'd come up with to keep the manifestations of insanity from overrunning their minds. Turning back from the view of monsters fighting across the saltwater marsh Lucy had formed in her head, Casca went back to speaking to Lucy as though nothing was happening.

"They are, for the most part, rather inexperienced in this sort of thing. They will see things no mortal, save for we few chosen by the Madcrafter, was meant to see. What little fighting ability they have will not suffice. And," he paused for effect, "they have a Child of the Dragon (_Author's Note: Term for someone in the Dragon Cult._) lurking close by. You will eliminate this problem and present yourself to Miss Faragonda as my representative in this matter."

"A hidden enemy? That could be anyone; how am I supposed to know who I'm supposed to be fighting?"

"You can perceive the astral markings of the Watchers, so you'll be able to tell who _not_ to fight. Work your way from there, and you'll find your traitor. I'm sure one of your divinations would do the trick admirably."

"Of course Master. I must ask though: why are we-"

A blur of grey and red catapulted over the tower at her, and Lucy shot bolt upright in her bed, the dream connection severed. Pushing her grey-green hair out of her face, she opened her blinds and looked around her room; her roommates had long ago learned not to put someone else with her, so she was one of the few Cloud Tower students to have a bedroom all to herself. The monster she'd seen right before waking up hadn't been a familiar one; in fact, while she thought she had seen something similar to it, she had never seen that monster before in her life. It still looked painfully familiar, though she had woken up too fast to get a good look at it. There was a way to check though, if it was feeling particularly frisky.

Walking over to her mirror, Lucy took a deep breath and looked herself in the eyes; she vaguely remembered setting a ghostly pet of hers on her ex-roomie, who had made a joke about her breaking mirrors every time she looked in one. Then, without breaking her concentration, she looked over her reflection's shoulder. The mirror filled up with her horrific menagerie, all creatures fighting to get into the image. One, a grey-skinned humanoid, was standing right behind her, too-long arms draped over her shoulders. Its teeth looked far too big for its (or rather _her_, as this one was definitely female) mouth, even though they all fit the oral cavity right now. Her eyes were milky white instead of grey, with no iris or pupil visible. The clothes were the same as her base form's, and the hair . . . jaw-length red with a small bit of blue held apart by a few beads. This was unmistakably her old semi-friend Mirta, albeit a demonic and downright evil version. She definitely did _not_ remember creating it; in fact, near-human nightmares were frowned upon by her instructors, and, after a very personal incident, she took the lesson of Sylia Matrius, a Madwalker that had created a planet populated by human horrors which had eventually killed her, very seriously.

"_I'm in your he-ad. You can't get rid of me no-ow, so don't even try-aye."_

The sing-song voice echoed through her head, and it scared her in ways no one else could possibly understand. A madness-spawned creature she did not remember creating had broken through her barriers and was running rampant through her brain. She found herself staring in her (_its,_ she thought,_ don't give it a gender or anything_) eyes, unable to look away as it psychically taunted her. With the greatest effort she wrenched her gaze away, breaking contact with it and dismissing the images of her menagerie. She couldn't wait to hunt down every single Watcher and study them to find their hidden enemy. She had an extremely powerful divination in her arsenal that would tell her everything she wanted to know, for a price. She clapped her hands and started getting dressed, eager to get to work.

"Uh, guys? I don't think I want to try this anymore."

Mirta peeked over the edge of the tower, watching her roommates flutter around. After a few days of special classes designed to get her caught up with the students her own age, as well as a nighttime induction into a secret society that she still didn't quite understand, she had enough of a grasp on her new fairy magic that she could transform and even cast a few spells. The part that her friends were pushing her into, the part she was a little leery about, was flying. She was used to _hovering_, which every witch could do, but flying was well out of her reach (_Author's Note: Witches don't have to transform to use their most powerful magic and can teleport without portals. Fairies are in most cases more powerful and can outright fly. While there is one minor exception noted later in this chapter (and literally only for that one spell), these are the differences I noticed in the episodes I watched and that stand in my world._). She looked down again, struck by a sense of vertigo as she watched Stella come rocketing straight up in front of her; she was so startled by her sudden ascent that she fell backwards on her butt. Stella was hovering in front of her, frowning with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Look, can you just hurry this up? We want to go to the mall, and I personally don't have all day to wait on you. And if you're just going to drop, try and aim over there," she pointed to her left, "so you don't end up splattered all over _my_ balcony."

"Hey!" Flora shot over, getting in Stella's face. "She doesn't have to go just because you say so! You are unbelievable-"

As Flora and Stella descended into an argument, Bloom and Musa came over to add their opinions. Bloom was yelling at Flora for yelling at Stella, while Musa was taking Flora's side that the world didn't revolve around Stella. While the four of them were involved in their four-way shouting match Tecna floated down next to Mirta, looking like she wanted to get involved but didn't know which side to join. Mirta closed her eyes, running through the mental mnemonic she'd learned to get herself to transform. Once she was sure she had her wings she walked firmly to an edge that wasn't in front of the flying argument; she took a few deep breathes to prepare herself, then closed her eyes and swan-dove off the tower.

For a few seconds she just _fell_, and she started getting worried that she really was going to die. All of a sudden she stopped falling, and at that point she opened her eyes again to see the ground getting a little smaller. Now that she was in the air, she didn't know why she was so scared of flying; this was _awesome_. She whooped and shot straight up through the knot of her friends, who were so wrapped up in their fighting that they hadn't noticed her leap of faith. Her flight had the hoped-for result of getting them to stop fighting, and most of them shot after her to congratulate her on her first flight. After a few victory laps around the school Mirta landed back on top of the tower, changing back to her normal clothes with everyone else. She walked down the stairs, planning to go to the mall with her friends. And, she guessed, Stella too.

Bloom was lagging behind the rest of the group, pulling out her cell phone. She was calling Leah, who had told her last year about an upgrade she could get for her phone that let her use it on Magix, to invite her and her friends to meet them at the mall. She'd already gotten Skye to bring some of his friends (Brandon and Riven, as well as a roommate they'd tried to keep away from the girls for some reason), and wanted all her friends to really get to know each other. After a few rings, Leah picked up.

"_Hey Bloom, what's up?"_

"Well, my roommates and I were going to head out to the mall, and I was wondering if you could bring your roommates to hang out with us."

"_Oh."_ Leah sounded a little worried. _"That might not be the best idea. Some of our personalities might not work well with you guys-"_

"Come on, we can put up with that . . . Hemlock, right? She'll be no problem. It'll be fun. Besides, don't you have a few new faces to show us?"

"_That's kind of the problem. You see, one of my new roomies is-"_

"Look, I'm not taking 'no' for an answer, so you might as well just show up. I want to see you again. Would it really be that bad if we hung out?"

"_All right, but I want you to remember how insistent you were to meet everyone. See you there."_

Leah hung up, leaving Bloom to wonder what she'd meant by her last statement. She decided it was probably nothing, hurrying up to tell her friends that they were meeting more people.

Lucy set the incense burning, letting the smoky-sweet scent waft throughout her room before kneeling in the center of the symbol she'd drawn on the floor of her room. Sitting at various points were the foci she used to cast her spell: a piece of bone from a scribe demon, a small mantis orchid flower she'd grown for this spell, a bowl of water with powdered bloodfire rubies mixed in it, and a piece of cooled magma. She closed her eyes, breathing in the incense she used both to focus her mind and, when in combat, to summon her monsters. She was close to starting the spell when hands clapped on her shoulders. Jumping about a foot in the air, she half-turned and found herself staring into the blank eyes of the Mirta-monster; it was grinning, showing off far too many teeth.

"Hiya boss. Whatcha doing?"

"What-how did you get out? I didn't summon you-"

"Really? I felt you going into some kind of zone and just assumed you wanted me in your life. Is this our room? Kind of cozy, don't you think?"

Lucy snatched the power crystal her out-of-control creation had picked up out of her hand before she could drop it. The Mirta-monster, undeterred by Lucy's insistence that she go away, grabbed her cell phone and started scrolling through the contacts while she held Lucy back with one overlong arm.

"What's my name, anyway? Can I pick my own, or do you have one picked out for me? Hey," for she'd gotten to Mirta's forgotten number in the phone and saw the picture, "this chick looks like me. 'Mirta', huh? I kind of like it. Can I be called Mirta too?"

"No!" Lucy snatched her phone out of the monster's hands as she shouted. "Look, will you go away if I give you a name?"

"I guess." She sounded pouty, like she really wanted to stay.

"Fine. You're the opposite of Mirta, so how about . . . Atrim? It's close enough, and it'll get you out of my hair for a while."

"Hmmmmm . . . all right! I'm Atrim, Atrim, ATRI-!"

"GO AWAY!"

Atrim dispersed into incense smoke, her toothy grin staying in place for a few seconds longer than the rest of her. Lucy shook her head. Nightmare creatures weren't supposed to be able to summon themselves; for that matter, the ability to have a full conversation and desire for a personal identifier were also supposed to be impossible too. She had to investigate Atrim's origins within her head, or at least return her to a mindlessly slavish existence, as soon as she could. But for now, she had to find out the Watcher's secret enemy and bring them before Miss Faragonda. Regaining her focus, she began casting her spell.

Lucy felt the world open up in her mind. She felt, as she always did when she cast her divination spells, that she could know _everything_ if she spent long enough in the midst of one of her spells (_Author's Note: _This _is why Lucy can summon monsters the way she does; the specialty I gave her in useless in combat. Go ahead, load up your D&D wizard with divination spells, play a few encounters, then come crying to me about how you couldn't do jack-squat. Diviners just aren't made for combat, so Lucy got some pretty cool pets to help her out._). She clamped down on that desire, focusing on the symbol drawn in the center of her circle; the worm-like dragon consuming its tail was the symbol branded onto every Dragon Cultist, and she was going to use that to track down her enemy. The universe lit up in her head, bright spots showing her where all of them were. She turned her attention to Magix; once her omnivision narrowed that far, she shortened it to just Alfea, feeling that it was best to start by looking under Miss Faragonda's nose. Two blips, one young and one old, were showing up in her mind. The younger one, who could probably do more damage to the Watchers that were actually going to be fighting, was the one she turned her attention to. A face appeared: long blond hair, brown eyes, tanned skin, teeth so white that they had to have been bleached. A few more seconds and she'd have her name. With that she could-

"Wake up! Come on, don't die on me now, we just got to know each other a little!"

Lucy's mind dropped back into her head, which, like the rest of her body, was being shaken by Atrim. She struggled out of her creation's arms, grabbing her wrists with the intention of crushing them to powder; they'd heal as soon as she was dismissed, but it would teach her a lesson.

"Why did you do that? I lost my spell before it finished!" She saw that the ruby water was gone and the flower rotted away, consumed by her casting. She would need more of each to cast the spell again, and they were extremely rare components for that spell. "I don't have her name! How am I going to turn her in without her name?"

"Your eyes were closed and you were shaking. I thought . . . I thought you were having a seizure, and I didn't want you to die."

Lucy growled; she sometimes got the shakes while in the middle of her spells, but they were no threat to her. Waving her hand, she cast a simple wind spell to douse the incense and dispel the smoke; this had the satisfying effect of dispelling Atrim as well. Grabbing a piece of paper, Lucy quickly sketched her nameless enemy's face. She vaguely recognized the face, but couldn't place it. Fortunately, both schools had visual logs of the students of both schools; it might take a while, but she'd find her enemy and expose her for what she truly was. She had to hurry, though; if her suspicions were right, the traitor would already be planning her move against the Watchers. She couldn't let anything like that happen.

"And you didn't tell me your roommate is _her_ because-?"

"I tried!" Leah and Bloom were standing away from the two groups of girls; Bloom's voice was raised well beyond normal, while Leah was trying to keep hers at a more reasonable volume. "You didn't let me finish my sentences, or you would have known why I didn't want to bring them along!"

"You should have been more persistent! Come on, you guys, we're leaving!"

"Oh, come on!" Leah grabbed Bloom by the wrist and turned her around so they were looking each other in the eyes. "She's really not that bad. I used to hang out with her my freshman year, and she was actually pretty cool. Just give her a chance; you won't regret it, I swear."

Bloom looked like she wanted to throw something downright foul back at Leah, but forced it down; they were still friends, even if Leah hung out with psychotic monsters like Icy. An arm wrapped around her waist, and she turned to look into Skye's eyes. Stella ran up to hug Brandon, but stopped dead when she saw the person standing behind him and Riven.

"Person" was a bit of a misnomer; this dude looked like a monster. He had to be almost seven feet tall, covered in blue scales from head to toe. Pure muscle rippled under the scales and his tight white tanktop; were it not for the fangs and claws, he might even be a little cute in an exotic sense (_Author's Note: Not my words. I drew a picture of Derek with no color, and my girlfriend said something very similar. I didn't go any further than that, but it was a female reaction that I felt like using. I just thought his kind would be cool to write in; I personally found half-dragons kind of weird-looking myself._). He bowed to Stella, bending nearly double to kiss her hand. This threw her even more; she pulled her hand away from his scaly lips and slapped him across his horned jaw. He resumed standing and glared at Brandon.

"Dude, I know she's your girlfriend, but I'm really tempted to eat her right now. Politics on the homeworld aside even, she's looking pretty tasty."

"Go ahead and do it. God knows Daddy's just begging for an excuse to bomb your desert to glass."

"Oh, wear a bra why don't you. Seriously, anyone else notice that she never wears one?"

That shut Stella up, though a vein was starting to pop in her forehead and her expression suggested she wanted to unload some hefty verbal abuse. The rest of the group stood in silence, most wondering what to make of the new guy. After a few tense seconds, Musa raised her hand in answer to his question. Stella took this chance to unload her anger on Musa.

"You . . . you perverted, carpet-munching little freak! (_Author's Note: Also not my words. I got this line from my girlfriend too, who doesn't always watch what she says when someone is messing around with her stuff. You really don't want to know any more than that, except that this line came from an incident involving one of our two lesbian house-mates, hence "carpet-munching little freak"._) You've been checking me out? That's disgusting!"

Leah seemed confused. "Carpet-munching . . . are you-?" (_Author's Note: Leah has a near-perfect memory, and clearly remembers when Cartman's mom tells the gang that lesbians "eat carpet" on South Park (it's kind of a long story why they're asking her that question), one of the shows her older brother Marcus made her watch when she was younger. This is why she immediately jumps to that conclusion. That and she's kind of bi, and has been referred to as a "carpet-muncher" before herself._)

"Yes, all right? Thanks for keeping _that_ a secret, Stella!"

"I have to ask: will there be a catfight soon?"

"Derek, shut up, all right? You've done enough damage already."

"But I haven't even _begun_ to do anything yet."

"You promised-"

"I promised not to _hit on_ the ones called Bloom and Musa, as well as Crown Princess Stella. You said nothing about making Stella flip out. Knowing where I'm from and who I am, maybe you should have thought of that when you made me make that stupid promise."

Brandon had buried his face in his hands, clearly regretting his now-disastrous omission. Skye, who seemed intent on keeping everyone happy, started introducing Derek to everyone. When not trying to make Stella lose it he seemed very nice, doing his hand-kissing bit whenever introduced to royalty. After he made the rounds, Derek took a good long look at Bloom and Musa, as though he was regretting promising to not try anything with them. After that look, he wrapped a massive arm around Tecna's shoulders; she didn't look happy about it.

"Excuse me, what do you think you're doing?"

"That's an incredibly adorable accent you've got there. What else can you do with your mouth?" His voice sounded more like a purring than anything else, clearly a sign that he was trying to be a charmer; this was in complete opposition to his words, which made him sound like he was soliciting a prostitute.

"Pervert! Get your hands off me!" Tecna managed to force Derek's arm off her shoulders before slapping him for good measure. He didn't seem the least bit put off by this, but Riven grabbed him before he could try again with another girl.

"Don't. I like most of them, and you'll just dig yourself a deeper hole the more you try."

"Come on! Don't hit on our girlfriends, don't hit on the lesbian, don't hit on Drew's cousin, and don't hit on the rest of them now. How am I supposed to produce heirs if I don't try? If I have no children, my part of the bloodline is out of the running to step in should Mother ever die."

"With any luck, all you scaly monsters will die off at the same time, so you don't have to worry about that."

Stella had regained most of her composure, and had thrown out her sentence with a little smile; if you hadn't heard what she'd said, you might think she'd made a joke. Nova wrapped Stella in a hug, startling the crap out of her.

"Oh my God, you're back to normal! This is awesome!"

"Back to . . . this is _normal_ for her? She was always nice and friendly with us last year. I thought she was just under some kind of spell or something this last week."

"I was nice to you because you were the freak from Earth. I figured it would be better to have you on my side while you were still something exotic."

"Yeah, she's always been like this. I kind of figured Daddy'd had her lobotomized or something after she blew up part of Alfea a couple years ago, and that was why she was being so ooey-gooey nice all the time."

"'Freak from Earth'? But . . . I thought you were my friend."

"Kid, this is how she treats her friends. Well, friends and the kids she has to kiss up to because our kingdom could wipe hers out and finally have the whole planet to ourselves. The only person she's genuinely nice to is her dad, as far as I know."

"You sand rats can't even build proper cities. I can't _wait_ until I'm queen and can order Solaria to wipe out you freaks. I hate sharing a planet with you and your mom."

"What are you two going on about? Do you guys know each other from before now or something?"

"Solaria is divided-"

"The planet is called Cygnus IV. Crown Princess Stella here is from Solaria, which is the name of one of the two continents and kingdoms on the planet. The other is my home kingdom and continent, which my people call Breaxis. There my mother, Boraksilitius the Thunder Champion, rules over a significantly larger landmass and population. She being a dragon means that she's seen every single Veldorian monarch that's ruled over Solaria since the war come and go. All six of them. We have a very interesting story of how the war between our two kingdoms ended and Stella's family came to power. Would you care to hear it?"

"Don't you dare!" Stella's forehead was covered in bulging veins now, and she looked downright furious. "Utter one syllable of that disgusting lie and I'll slit your throat right here and now!"

Derek walked right up to Stella, so that she was looking him roughly in the upper torso. She leaned her head back to at least look him in the chin, only to find that he was now looking her in the eyes; his were bright gold and distinctly reptilian, showing no emotion whatsoever. While Stella's gaze was drawn into his eyes he opened his mouth and roared; not a shout either, but an honest-to-God _roar_ that literally knocked Stella on her ass. She pulled herself up to the general giggles of the rest of the group, while Derek wiped the slight release of drool from his mouth with his scaly arm. She looked like she was ready for round 2, but Brandon grabbed her by her shoulders and led her away. Bloom shook her head. This was turning into way more trouble than it was worth.

Lucy clicked the mouse, and the computer holding the student archives cycled to another student. She'd been searching for at least half an hour, and was still no closer to discovering her enemy's name. First, she had needed to set the computer so that it would only display the students currently at Alfea; otherwise she would have had to cycle through nearly 500 years of girls, which was not an attractive proposition. Even so, all she had done so far was to eliminate the senior class as the source of the Daughter of the Dragon (_Author's Note: Proper name for a female member of the Dragon Cult. Males are called Sons of the Dragon. This is a clarification on Child of the Dragon listed earlier._). She still had three years to go, and she wasn't looking forward to wasting the rest of her day searching.

"You know, it might be easier if you ask someone for help."

Lucy felt the presence behind her and turned to find herself staring at nightmarish duplicates of her parents standing there. Of course it wasn't them; they'd died horribly when she was four. It wasn't even the ones she'd created when she was eight, though they had looked that way; those had been destroyed. Only one creature in existence took that form around her, and he actually might be able to help.

"Hello Cauchemar. Any reason you decided to sneak up on me like that?"

"Just checking in on my favorite little freak. And why, might I ask, are you going through Alfea's student body? Do I smell a delicious festival of fear coming?"

"I'm not doing anything like that. I just need to find out who one of them is. It's for my master."

"Hmmmm . . . is that her, the picture there?"

"Yeah, it is. Something just broke my concentration before my spell could get me her na-"

"I've seen her before, and so have you. If I recall correctly, that is the troublemaker Princess Stella Veldorian, sophomore at Alfea."

Stella . . . of course! This was the girl she'd been competing against during the Miss Magix pageant, the one that had beaten her. She'd seen been an irritant then, but if she was a Daughter of the Dragon, she had to be eliminated immediately. Lucy entered her name into the computer just to verify that this was who she was looking for. Assured that Stella was her target, she stood up abruptly and started walking for her room. She had to get her equipment if she wanted to bring her down. She was smiling as she walked; this day was starting to look like a good day after all.

For the most part, the day at the mall was going pretty well. Most of Bloom's friends had started to warm up to Icy; Musa's beef had been with Darcy and had no basis in reality, while Mirta was taking the word of Leah, who had been nice to her during her brief time at Cloud Tower, that Icy was nice, even going so far as to forgive her for the transformation curse in front of the rest of the group. Flora and Tecna hadn't really been attacked by Icy personally, and were willing to give her a chance. Stella, on the other hand, was too busy sniping at Derek and getting furious whenever he gave her the business back to even try to get to know Icy, and Bloom despised her on principle. Other than that, everyone seemed to be getting along. When they got to the food court, it played out that Icy and Bloom were sitting next to each other; Leah, who was sitting across from them, started staring intently at the duo, even asking Icy to take her glasses off so she could compare the two of them. Bloom wanted to ask her what she was doing, but was distracted when Derek stole Stella's corn dog (he'd sat next to her on purpose) and ate it, stick and all. She wasn't happy.

"I was going to eat that!"

"If you were going to eat it, you would have eaten it fifteen minutes ago. You know, my younger sister is experimenting with anorexia, and I've been practicing what I'm going to say to talk her out of it. Mind if I try it out on you?"

"I'm not starving myself! If you must know, I was going to eat it and then puke it up late-"

Stella suddenly realized that she'd said _way_ too much, but it was too late to take it back. She shrank down a little as everyone started staring at her. Leah managed to distract everyone by sorting through her purchases. The first, a black leather dog collar studded with metal spikes, she pulled out and wrapped around her neck, holding up her compact mirror to see how it looked; Bloom, who had thought the collar was for her mother's dog, didn't approve, though she admitted it was a nice look for her. Leah took out her other purchase, a CD by a girl rapper called Lady Payne, and started listening to it with the personal CD player she'd brought along with her. About ten seconds into the first track (a skit introducing the album) she skipped back to the beginning, eyes darting around the table until they fell on Mirta, who was politely nibbling on a breadstick while talking to Nova, another friend from Cloud Tower. The skit started playing again, and Leah shot up out of her seat when she heard Payne's voice again.

"Oh my God! Dude, this is you, isn't it?"

Mirta rolled her eyes and tried to ignore Leah's outburst, but a few of the other girls got interested. Leah turned up the volume on her player and set the headphones down so everyone could hear, while Stella pulled out the album cover and began leafing through the pages to see some of the pictures of the artist. Everyone could agree that Payne sounded exactly like Mirta, which was confirmed when Stella passed around the pictures of her hidden in the album cover. Mirta was barraged with questions, finally holding up her hands to get everyone to stop.

"Yes, all right? That's me. I didn't tell you guys because I figured you'd freak out."

"This is 'Payne in the Ass', right? That album knocked me out of the top spot two months ago and hasn't left since." Soniqua didn't seem the least bit upset about having been unseated; like Leah and Nova, she'd been pretty nice to Mirta and was happy to see her succeed. "Good job, honey. How much have you made off this so far?"

"I don't want to talk-"

"Come on, I want to know." Stella, for the first time in her life, seemed interested in Mirta. "How rich are you, huh?"

Mirta muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "twenty-five million". Stella rose from her chair and ran over to her in one movement, grabbing her in a hug just as unexpected as the one Nova had given her earlier in the day. Hers was a little close to Mirta's neck, and she pried Stella's arm away from her throat while asking what exactly she was doing. Stella was happy to answer.

"It's just . . . now that you're rich and famous, I think I can bear sharing a room with you. I bet I can even stand hanging out with you now!"

It was at that moment that everyone noticed Tecna had plugged her ears; once everyone started listening to the music again, they realized that Mirta was using a _lot_ of foul words. Leah shut off her player, but she looked pretty impressed by Mirta's audacity with her language. Mirta held up her arms again to fend off any questions about the sheer amount of hate she was channeling into her music; it wouldn't have worked normally, but a shout from across the food court cut off anyone's questions.

"Daughter of the Dragon! Come forth and face judgment!"

The whole group, as well as most of the other people in that area of the mall, stood and turned to see where the shout had come from. Lucy was slowly walking towards Bloom's group. She was dressed in what looked like leather armor, spinning a smoking censer on a chain in her right hand. The smoke began clumping into three groups; all of a sudden it solidified, becoming a trio of wolves with scaly skin and clusters of tentacles growing from their backs. All six fairies transformed at once, while the witches changed into their combat outfits; while they didn't _need_ to change to fight, the combat suits helped protect new, favored or expensive clothes from being destroyed. More smoke turned into monsters; one was a mechanical humanoid easily as tall as Derek, while the other two looked like praying mantises with no wings and an extra set of folded arms. The creatures began running towards the massed group, who were all readying combat magic or, in the guys' case, weapons. Mirta closed her eyes, concentrating on a spell she'd been working on for most of her magical career; she'd never tried casting it before, and certainly not on this many people. She forced her power into it . . . and dropped to one knee as a massive headache ripped through her concentration. She fell forward, and her hand grabbed a railing in front of her to hold herself up. Her eyes opened as soon as she realized that she hadn't been standing in front of a railing before casting her spell, and she saw illusions of herself and the whole group dodging around the attacks of Lucy's nightmare pets from two floors up.

"Did you just . . . I thought fairies couldn't teleport without portals." Tecna remained a clinical observer despite the weirdness. "How did you do that?"

"I dunno. Maybe it just crossed over when my powers shifted."

"Look, can we get a plan going? Eventually one of those monsters is going to catch one of your fakes, and then we'll be hunted down again." Skye looked worried. "We have to get Bloom out of here-"

"How are you so sure she's after Bloom?" Stella sounded frantic, though no one knew why; she was probably scared by the clearly unreal creatures running around below. "Did she actually say Bloom's name?"

"There's only two of us here associated with dragons, and I don't think anyone's gonna think Scales here is a girl." Musa had powered down and retransformed after putting on her veil; the fanged mask it turned into (_Author's Note: The veil is her version of the Ring of Solaria; it's an item that transforms with her which she uses to get a power boost and gain an additional attack form, the sonic scream seen in Chapter 3. I'll go more into it later in the story, when Bloom, Tecna and Mirta get theirs. Flora will get one too, just not at the same time as everyone else._) made her look scary. "Hemlock – that's your name, right? – your magic works like Flora's, right? It alters terrain rather than actually attacking directly?"

"I've got a thorn barrage and my sword. I can hold my own, thanks."

"Flora's got one of those two; the thorn barrage I mean. You two go with Bloom and get her out of here." Musa was showing off the intelligence that made her top of her class. "Tecna, you don't have any offensive spells, so you should probably go with them-"

"I'm going too!" Stella looked like she was going to piss herself out of fright. "I'm not that strong, and I really don't want to die like this!"

"Seriously? I knew you were a coward, but to just abandon your family, boyfriend and friends all at once boggles the mind." Derek watched Stella follow Flora, Bloom, Hemlock and Tecna through the portal they used to escape with a derisive look on his face. "Now, are we capturing Corpse-face down there or just killing her?"

"You guys take care of the monsters; I think I can talk her down if I get close enough."

Derek looked at Mirta for a second like he couldn't believe she would even try. Then, with no warning, he jumped the railing and dropped in front of the mechanoid, swinging as he landed; it was then that everyone realized that he was relying on his claws over an energy weapon like the others. The other boys went through portals provided by Icy, whose mother had drilled the theory behind them into her at an early age, while the girls got down either by teleporting (the witches) or flying. The battle was on.

Mirta was hovering over the action, trying to figure out how best to get to Lucy; she still couldn't believe her friend was going berserk in public like this. A new horror, a cluster of eyes supported by spined wings, rose up against her, and she turned her combat spell, a plasma bolt designed to supplement her illusion powers, onto it. The spell ripped it in half, causing it to dissipate into the odd-smelling smoke from whence it had been spawned. Watching the fight, she noticed that the monsters were trying more to contain everyone rather than killing them. The only one that looked like it was trying to do some serious damage was the mech, and she suspected that was only because Derek was beating it silly. As she watched Derek punched both hands through the robot's chest, ripping it in half with one massive thrust of his arms; as the smoke from the machine's demise cleared, Derek coughed a lightning bolt at a new creature, one she couldn't clearly make out. Despite early success, her friends looked like they were getting worn down by what had turned into a steady stream of hideous creatures. She had to stop Lucy, and fast, before someone got hurt.

She landed on Lucy's left, the side she wasn't spinning the censer on, and cleared her throat. Lucy either didn't notice or was just in the zone, because she didn't react. Mirta got a little closer, reaching out to tap Lucy on the shoulder; hopefully that would get her attention. Before Mirta could touch her, Lucy slapped the back of her neck, rubbing it like you would a bug bite. She blinked a few times, shaking her head in confusion, before turning to see Mirta standing next to her.

"Mirta? Why . . . what are you doing here? Why are we fighting? We're supposed to be on the same side, aren't we?"

"You just started attacking us, shouting something about a dragon or something. We're trying to keep these monsters _you_ summoned from tearing the place apart!"

"That's not . . . hold on." Lucy waved her hand at the censer, summoning a wind gust that blew away the smoke and doused whatever flame source had been producing it; the monsters started fading away, dissipating into nothingness. "I was supposed to be doing something for my master, but I can't . . . I don't remember what I was going after. I've got to see Miss Faragonda now; think you can take me there?"

Mirta nodded, opening a portal before anyone else could try and attack Lucy. Whatever had happened, if Lucy was an ally of the Watchers, they needed to keep her out of trouble.

Stella was crouched in the hallway, trying to make the noises she'd been taught to attract her recently-acquired bug. She hadn't gotten much practice, so she sounded pretty sloppy; still, it was going pretty well. At least, it was until a more refined version of the sound started up from the nearest intersecting hallway. The little insect turned immediately, heading towards the other hallway. Stella scrambled after it, hoping to catch it before it turned; if she got caught with this creature, she could be in all kinds of trouble. She rounded the corner to find Toxica standing up, the insect scuttling around in her hands.

"Oh my . . . this isn't _your_ Darkar mind-squito, is it? You know they're highly illegal, right? My dad tried breeding them at one point. When the priests found out he was doing it they made me watch what they did to him. Horrible stuff they did to him; I still have nightmares, actually. Maybe I can get you tried on my planet for having this; I'd love to see them mutilate you they way they do to every other criminal. I wonder if you'd kill yourself afterwards; most people do, you know. They just can't seem to live with themselves messed up like that."

"Give me that bug; you don't know what it can do-"

"They suck out information from a person's brain that they bite. If you eat them you gain that information for yourself. What's so important that you needed something like this, huh?" Toxica popped the bug in her mouth, chewing it carefully before swallowing. "Oh my, you hit the jackpot there. Too bad I didn't have someone else eat this thing; maybe then they'd believe me when I tell them you're a member of the Dragon Cult."

"Cut the crap." Stella's expression was dead, hiding incredible fury. "I'm bulletproof, remember? As long as I'm a princess, your mysterious leader can't touch me. If you had any _real_ proof I was a bad guy, I wouldn't be here."

"And if _you_ had any kind of confidence in your power, or even some variety in your attacks, I'd be dead. I mean, honestly, did you really think they'd believe you when you said I molested you? Did you think I'd be expelled just because you said so? You're so arrogant, thinking that the world revolves around you; I can't wait for the day that they let me destroy you."

"That's never going to happen, and you know it. No matter what you do to try and expose me, I'll still be here, mocking you every step of the way."

Toxica seemed to be thinking up a retort; in the end, she settled for hocking a toxic loogie in Stella's face instead. Stella screamed as the toxin, one of the most potent Toxica could manage without transforming, set her face and eyes to itching terribly. Half-blind from the sensation, Stella staggered away, still shrieking as she stumbled down the hallway. Toxica smirked a little as she walked off the other way. She knew she might get in trouble for this later, but it was _very_ satisfying to screw with Stella. _Just be patient,_ she thought. _She'll blow her cover eventually, and then I'll bring her all the way down. Just give it time._


End file.
